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[pbruggeman at tiscali.nl]

hardy  Aroids)" <ARISAEMA-L at NIC.SURFNET.NL>
From: "pbruggeman at tiscali.nl" <pbruggeman at TISCALI.NL>
Subject: Re: Arisaema griffithii and growing conditions
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I have studied many populations of A. griffithii (and related) during
flowering in Sikkim and West Bengal and the thing that strikes most is
that they flower at least 3 weeks before the onset of the monsoon. If
one digs around the tubers the soil is barely moist which means that in
the wild the wet period comes after flowering with the leaves
completely unfurled so I would therefore suggest to not water any
griffithii too much before and around flowering and only start watering
mildly 2 weeks after flowering. One must also remember that 80 % of the
grifs on the market are grown by only a couple of nuseries in the
Kalimpong-area and most plants on the market can be retraced, directly
or indirectly, to one of them. What that means is that clonal variation
is minimum and gives a false idea about the required growing conditions
and the variation within griffithii (which is MUCH greater than many
believe and includes the plant marketed, and grown, as utile). One of
the Kalimpong nurseries is currently tissue culturing some new clones
and forms we collected so hopefully in the near future there will be at
least one form that one can have succes with under the local conditions
in the West.

Pascal