Alocasia Portora Bloom

My portora is blooming and it is just magnificent.

Close up.

That is truly magnificent --never seen the bloom before.

Here in DC, I just mulched over my outdoor winter bed, and brought a few inside, so no hope of blooms till next year, maybe.

I saw some of those in the Cairns botanic gardens but couldn't find the label. They look really great.

Beautiful Dan. Don't you just admire the foliage and bloom's from these plant's!

I do! And if you can tell in the first picture... At the base of the plant is a baby that has been coming up. I just removed the baby with a knife and potted it up.

That is a very neat plant...definately adds to the 'Jungle' Look! LOL

Yeah except for the cardboard pieces that my greenhouse came in lol.

MIne is still sitting in pieces in the backyard after 5 years, I do have the knee walls and what looks like framing up....I have resorted to eveil plant people tactics though, I figure by February you won't be able to walk any where in the house, I covered the couch and loveseat with plywood and then covered them with starter pots (about 4" pots) the kids counted for me there are now a little over 1000 pots everywhere now, wants the start growing and filling in and you can't move anymore maybe then he'll finish it...If not I will start selling his Hot Rods and then hire someone to build exactly what I want and need...LOL

I started worrying thinking about the winter and dreading the though of losing any of my plants so I bought one and it was a pain to build. But now it is up and I am loving it.

Hi Dan and yes, I did notice your baby plant as well. How long have you had your A. Portora? I had alot of luck with the C. Illustris blooming this past Summer although not quite as impressive as your Portora bloom but.....;-)

What is your average temperature "low's" for the Winter month's there in Winter Haven?

Beautiful! I have only had that plant for about 3-4 months. I bought it while it was quite large but it has been growing great for me! Last year we had some pretty bad freezes in our area which is kind of rare for us but I didn't sustain any real damage to my plants. So far we haven't had weather under the 50's and that was during a cold front last month. Lately it has been around the high 60's low 70's for nights.

Great looking plant, Dan. I bought some small ones this spring and mine grew great guns here, too- even in pots! It's turned into one of my favorites, I like it better than Boa.

I don't have the Boa but I do love this plant. My Borneo Giant is still my favorite but this one is def. unique.

Thank's Dan. I think I will add "Portora" to my want list now that I have seen your's and that bloom.

ha ha ha, hopefully i will be able to figure out if this thing sets seed or not. I guess I will have to ask LariAnn that one!

Yep, me don't know;-)

This is one of my all time favorite E.E's. Picture was taken while I was in Florida a few week's ago. I wish I could grow these this huge here. Guess I will just have to move to Florida to get it though;-)))

Yeah, I have lots of those! They grow and multiply like crazy! Xanthosoma Sagittifolium if I am not mistaken.

Yes, and Rub it in why don't ya. Just kidding.

Time for me to jump in! Alocasia 'Portora' does not set seed in my experience, as most of the seedling selections do not produce pollen. I have tried setting seed using those which do produce pollen, but so far have not gotten it to work. That doesn't mean it cannot be done, but it may mean that it may take some doing. I've noted that the Alocasia 'Blue Portora' series produces much more pollen that the original Portoras do, but still no seed set yet. I'd love to get seed set, as that would be the path towards achieving a hardy plant that looks more like A. portei.

Well I knew you could help! I got one baby off of it, hopefully it will start popping more up next season.

They also seem pretty hardy. Some of mine were outside until it got pretty cold, the Boas leaves turned translucent and died back, but the Portora was just fine. Up until then I thought they were very similar.

LariAnn, do you have a photo of the Blue Portora? I think that is going to be my new obsession- plants that have a blue tinge, as I adore the blue on my Musella.

PS. Great article on Massonia! Missed it the first time around.

Here's a link to my Marketplace ad for the Blue Portora. The "blue" part comes from one of the parents, the "blue odora", which has bluish/purplish petioles. By contrast, the regular Portora had the green A. odora as one parent.

http://davesgarden.com/products/market/view/1633/

Oops. I thought the leaves might have a blue-ish color.

In Washington DC, A. Portora has produced pups galore, which I've used to create an (almost too) large inventory of great plants very quickly.

In Winter 2008, I snuck a few pups home with me from our plant in Vieques (which had dried out and gone dormant --had thought dead). In the Spring, put a couple in pots, and a couple in the ground here in DC, they all did well through Summer and Fall. Experimenting a bit, I "diversified" --put a few in pots to live inside for the Winter, left a few in pots to live in our pool bubble greenhouse, and buried a few (snipped of all leaves) in the "BWilliams Bed" of black-plastic-covered mulch.

Spring of 2009 found every single experimental group had done well. Inside cousins had on balance shrunk a bit, but steadily produced new leaves and looked great in their bright spot. Pool bubble guys had also routinely produced new leaves in their "cool rainforest" environment --always dripping wet, temps as low as 40F, rarely above 60F, and had put out pups, unlike insiders. The BW Bed-fellows had clearly slept through it all, but woke right up. All of them did even better outside through Summer and Fall 2009. We've ended up giving several huge specimens away, still have many more than we did this time last year --using three spots is no longer an experiment, but a storage-space requirement now. I even have about a dozen little pups that are happily growing out roots, despite their prosaic life in a jar of plain water the last 30 days.

Portora is just a fantastic plant --makes even ME look good.

That has (and is) always been my goal in hybridizing - to produce plants that everyone can grow and enjoy. I'm really happy to hear of folks getting excellent results with them. This Spring I'll be releasing more new hybrids for folks to try out - including my robusta hybrid, the Robudora.

I can't wait for the Robudora! I am really looking forward to that one. I love the Alocasia Robusta but know that I will probably never be able to keep one alive. Your Robudora is the closest thing and I can't wait!

Man sometimes I'd just like to peek inside LariAnns head and see how much brain power she uses compared to the rest of us!