How Cool! You may have 2 or 3 completely new species/hybrid-crosses going there. That is truly exciting. Please keep us posted as to your findings.
My special mystery aroid
Typhonium noonamahiensis?
mekos
Jan 11, 2010
Now tropic, we grow lettuce for eaten?!?
Hiya Dave....long time no see. Hope you had a good holiday...drop in sometime. How is the addition coming along?
Hi Jean! Painting today, then off to work planting bamboo. Is it cold in LA?
Frigid.....19 degrees last night....the yard looks like it has had every bit of the color sucked out of it....our usual low is maybe 30, and then just for a very short time....these temps are staying well below freezing for 12-14 hours at a stretch....BRRRR
This is becoming unbelievably complex. I finally got the car fixed but flooding had cut off access to the southern side plants. (The northern side plants were cut off by 5 to 6 metres of water over the bridge.) The rains have eased right off now and today I was able to get to the south side plants, the one that had been ready to flower. However, the flower had come and was virtually gone. Just the withered remains left.
It did look as though the inside of the spathe had been purple. Next flowering was now a year away to find out for sure. That was a bit of a let down so I decided to look around on the off chance there might be another one flowering now.
So I walked around checking areas with similar soil, vegetation and level above flood. Nothing showed up and I decided to give up. There was a storm coming through and I'd had to cross through 6 creeks. A big down pour could have left me stranded over night.
Close to the car some purple colour caught my eye. It was an open flower. Just couldn't believe my luck. Close up the smell was bizarre, sort of like a stale cattleyard odour gone a bit acrid.
Your adventures harken back to the great plant expeditions of the 1800's. Of course you don't have to battle angry natives, but the weather can pose problems just as dangerous.
Of course, if you look closer, like when doing a smell test, you'll notice the leaf coming out from the plant at the bottom of the photo. That leaf is totally different to the other plant. So what's going on?
Sounds like you stumbled on a breeding ground...That makes 3 different leaf structures now?
Themoonhowl, if you only knew some of the natives here ;O)
Yet another species?
And if you think that's unreal, wait til you see the next bit. Near the purple flower was another plant with that same distinctive leaf shape, except the leaves were a bit larger. It had been flowering too. It's flower was green, larger than the other, and the spathe was thicker, almost fleshy. The spadix had fallen away.
I can but imagine....grin. You may very well have found the perfect nursery for Typhonium crosses/species. That is too exciting, TBreeze.
So the count now is 4?
Closer up the spathe looks like it's been chewed. It's long as well and you can see the end of it folded underneath.
So, how many different plants are involved in all this? Not long back I was unaware of Typhonium, today I'm totally confused by it. How many more surprises are there?
You may want to bring some sort of marker with you ( a stick with number written on it to go with your pics) so you will be better able to keep an eye on them. This has got to have just gobsmacked...
At this stage I don't know what the count is, all I know is I'm confused. It might take a bit of time to make sense of it. At least it's good to have got some photos of flowers. I definitely need help with this one. There used to be an element of excitement about the possibility of finding some more. Now it more a feeling of fear that I'll come across more and be even more confused (if that's possible).
Hence the suggestion for markers...with the rains it would be easy to lose track of them. It may be time to see about getting someone to help with ID's in the field....would be a shame to miss this opportunity....or have the caterpillars much them into oblivion....grin
Got some rough markers out but over the next few days should be able to put up something better. Also hoping to get over that bridge soon as the water is going down now. Might find some more of these plants flowering.
I would imagine that when it is the dry season, the Typhoniums are dormant? Certainly know how to protect themselves....grin
That's why few people are aware of them. A lot of people don't get around much in the wet season. No Typhoniums get around in the dry season. So it's only fanatics like me that mainly see them. Same with Amorphophallus. Although they're much bigger.
Typhonium multiformis?
That would solve a lot of problems Dave ;O)
I'm not sure that all these from post 7463895 onwards aren't the same thing. Its not at all uncommon for these Typhoniums to have highly variable leaf shapes, and the brownish ones at the end are probably the purple in decay.
A key question is where are they? Some of these northern Australian species seem to have quite restricted distributions. Did you pickle any of the flowers? You really need to be able to look at the organs in the lower part of the spadix to be able to identify the species..
Rachel, I'll get there, somehow, with a lot of help.
Alistair, that group you say are likely to be the same are all growing within 30 metres of one another. I've checked a few hundred metres around by randomly criss-crossing the area but never saw anything else. The Spear Grass is coming up so it's getting more difficult to find anything, particularly the narrow leafed varieties. The first one (on this thread) is on the other side of the river in identical habitat, occupies much the same size area but is far more numerous. I've probably only checked about 100 metres around those.
So far they've been in a sandy loam that's wet but drains well. It's very open or sparse woodland near the waterlogged river flats, but slightly elevated above those.
The purple flower in the photo above was finished the next day, withered. In its withered state it looked a lot like the broad leafed one that I got back to too late for the flowering.
The larger one nearby doesn't seem to have changed.
Closer up.
Possibly Typhonium eliosurum
lakesidecallas, some of Tropic's picture's do resemble a Typhonium eliosurum from what I can find.
http://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/Images/herbs/Typhonium%20eliosurum.jpg
T. eliosurum is endemic to New South Wales.
I just realized you have been working on the ID for these guys for almost 2 years now....what perseverance, Tropic....grin
I have just found my notes about NT Typhonium. The closest match to these last ones with pics in flower is T. cochleare, which ranges from Darwin to Arnhemland.
That's great Alistair. So that would be right, that those different forms would all still most likely be T. cochleare? They're in the mid section of the South Alligator River, near the escarpment, above the floodplains.
And the one at my place (Noonamah), post #7451016, is probably the same. Although it's growing in very soggy/waterlogged conditions, unlike those at the South Alligator. With the distribution of T. cochleare hopefully I should be able to find it in other locations (while the season lasts).
I've heard they're in the process of doing a major revision of Typhonium at the moment. Speaking with the National Herbarium, they're interested in getting specimens of all sorts of plants from me, provided they're presented properly together with metadata. Don't want another T. russell-smithii situation ;O)
that one looks different to me. I think there are three species in this thread.
Yes there is DNA work being done which suggests that the Australian Typhoniums are a different genus. The key one they need material of is T. mirabile from the Tiwi Islands.
Bit of a long swim. Although there could be a couple of things following me prompting a faster swimming pace ;O)
But mind you, there was a Nervilia (orchid) found only on the Tiwis and then I found some on the mainland in central Arnhem Land. You never know until you look. Although even then you might not find out.