Arisaema season, who has any showing?

I wonder if they would cross Neal. If they are side by side you would think they might come from the same plant, or some animal has visited both and deposited seeds at the same location! Does any animal or bird eat the seed I wonder.

I hope mine make seeds, I haven't given them any help, they are both open but started at different times. I have the other small one not showing yet, will have to check on it.

The one triphyllum seedling is showing a slightly darker colour at the bottom of the stem, but it's small yet, no more germianted yet.

I do have 16 of the 26 A speciosum through, they are robust.

If we're talking swaps, I have several small ciliatum liubaense, someone sold small ones no bigger than my biggest offsets for £16 for 2 tubers on ebay, around 2 years from flowering. I have about a dozen of different sizes, they are not huge when they flower and mine flowered in 5 years from the tiniest tuber, one of two which lived, I think they were seed grown as none of my offsets are that small.

I shouldn't have put my small sikk tubers in the greenhouse yet, only one of 3 left but it looks OK, probably got too wet.

I think the sikks leaves were eaten by slugs, then they couldn't survive with being small. Some of the 9 I have seem to be slightly nibbled as the leaves are getting thin, I have found some smallish slugs. Can't use any poisons on them in the greenhouse as I have toads and frogs.

Look what speciosum has done today!

This message was edited May 5, 2007 12:16 AM

The leaf stem is deep green with khaki patches.

Hmmmm....something I've observed in those growing in the wild and in my woodland garden is that not a lot of the blooms form clusters of berries (which are very showy). Seems like its usually just the biggest plants/flowers that go to seed. Has anyone else observed this?

Maybe they've changed sexes........

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/78/2/1306

R.

Great find R! I found another article on a link at the side,

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q01133223w7744g5/

The size they mentioned would suggest I am close to having a female plant! I need to measure it, 380mm is about 15".

Your observations were spot on Neal!

It's funny, the name that's attached to some plants when you get them: this was labelled A. cashiri... seems like it's probably tashiroi.

Gemini... D-mail me this fall to remind me, and I'll send you a sikokianum tuber.
Don

Very interesting. The large plants are typically surrounded by smaller ones, I suppose to ensure pollination. Mother Nature is so clever, lol.

Don, Thanks sooooo much! I'll be sure to dmail this fall :)

Neal

Arisaema ringens is one of those jacks that's really hard to get a good picture of when it's grown into a clump:

I'm in awe........

speciosum's spathe is on it's way.

speciosum emerges..

How sculptural and strange!

It's like a Xmas cracker full of surprises!

I like the orangey red edges on the leaves and stems,

When i grow these from seed they seem to germinate ok, i get one heart shaped leaf and the that colapses and thats the end of that!

Any ideas anyone?

Mike

Mike I tried my first lot in the propogator, the temps according to the packet instructions (from POD) were correct but around 6 all looking the same came up and promptly collapsed. I put the pot in the greenhouse, which is part shaded, and another germinated later in the summer.

The trick is not to follow packet instructions, just put them where they will get day warmth, some shade and night cold. Mine are doing fine that way.

Ahhhh,, Ok gotcha, i will keep trying. Typically the oldest seedling got eaten in the greenhouse the other day! So looks like even if i do get them past the first seed leaf stage something bad happens!

Cheers for the tip.

Mike

I lost 2 of the 1 year sikokianums because slugs and/or snail ate the leaves. The third one lost one of the three lobes, I found the culprits and luckily it's still alive but more can come marching in! I haven't noticed other arisaemas being eaten, they must like that one.

A. consanguineum always makes me think its flower is dressed in a tuxedo:

That must be the pin stripes! Yours is the dark form, mine only has a purplish flush on the hood. That isn't flowering now?

Mine hasn't come through yet. It will have to get a move on, this was taken on 14th June last year.

i wish i had noticed this thread earlier :-(
i have A.speciosum up
A. triphyllum up
A. candidissimum is also up
just starting to poke their heads thru are
A. kiushianum
A. Griffithii & A. Griffithii 'pradhanii'
A, utile
and a cpl more i can't remember the names of at the moment
all are in the GH not outside

Dick
image of A.Speciosum

view of Arisaema in GH

Strever, I'm glad your speciosum looks like mine, I was beginning to wonder if it was the right one. The tip is very long, now just starting to separate from the dangly bit which is using the leaf as a hanger. There is a larger form 'var. magnificum', I'm not sure which this is but I bought it as A speciosum, jacquesamand states it has a larger flower and taller flower stem. I got mine from another seller.

http://www.jacquesamand.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=JAUK&Category_Code=Arisaema

Taken today, the stem at the bottom is longer than it looks, it's taken from a high angle. The pot it's in is around 10" diameter. The flower spathe looks very long to me, what do you think?

Closer

The larger A triphyllum with red stems has now aged to a dark purplish chocolate colour.

I now have 25 out of the 26 A. speciosum seeds growing, and they are moving fast.

The compost you used i'm guessing its either something specialist or own made gear. Is that right?
They look loads healthier than my peat reduced and sand mixed ones.

Mike

Mike I use the same for everything. A lot of my own leaf/grass cutting compost which takes a couple of years to mature so I have two on the go, and with a horse chestnut tree much bigger than a house I have loads of leaves.

The water drain at the front is the other source, the gritty soil mixed with leaves which is dug out mostly in August when it's dry, by the spring it beaks down enough to use. It starts looking like leaves with soil, to breaking down to a good rich river soil which still has leaves but no longer apparent. I was mixing in some wood ash last year from a bonfire, and some this year, but haven't put it in lately. I will put it in the tomato and pepper pots which I did last year, then I really don't need artificial fertiliser, you would be surprised how much greener the plants looked with that in.

I recycle the tomato and pepper pots when repotting, sowing seed etc. and last year I had more than before, 29 large cut flower buckets of it which I have used. I mix more of my compost with it, and a little more drain soil. The majority of the mix is compost with enough soil to give it substance. In order to do this you first need a huge conker tree, and a long drain!

Janet
my A.speciosum is magnificum
see http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/150179/
and the thread is maybe 16" long
and my A triphyllum also get darker with age
see the far right one in this image, it is the first one to emerge

Dick




This message was edited May 12, 2007 11:58 AM

I know what you mean about potash. It does green stuff up well. Also anything with iron in.

I'll stick to buying stuff.... your way sounds like hard work. I use the garden compost on all the beds throughout the year depending on how well rotted down and what i need.

Still loving those pics though. keep them coming.

Mike

Dick, the stems on my triphyllum were red and turned to a purple brown but the spathe hasn't changed a lot yet, it lasts a long time so I might expect to see it turn a different colour? The spathe on the left looks very much the same. My smaller one is still going too but it has green stems.

I see your candidissimum there, and anyone who has a kiushianum draws a natural streak of envy from me! My griffithii pradhanii is in it's second year, I wonder if it's shy to flower as it was a huge bulb. A griffithii never made a flower in it's 2 years of leaf production, it was also large mature bulb but not as big, it did however disappear for a long time after planting then disappeared altogether after making leaves for 2 years. It was deep but probably got too dry, we seem to never have enough rain in my particular spot. That's one of the reasons I prefer to keep them in pots.

My speciosum bulb looked like yours, but then they probably do look the same. The tendril is at least 16" long and probably longer, now I have to measure it but can't get to the end yet. It was an enormous bulb.

Mike, it is work but it's also good as well as cheap, I would spend hundreds of pounds with the amount I use, that money I can spend on plants! Peat or peat reduced, if it's a coconut fibre or similar has no natural nutrients and the texture is wrong, plants die in that stuff even if it takes 3 or 4 years, they don't make the correct type of roots.

Hehe, Its more the work involved that puts me off! lol
I use about 2 bags a week on average throughout the year, i really don't have the time for anything else.

Most peat reduced stuff now isn't coconut like it used to be, its treated woodpulp and or stuff from the council recycling! lol You are right about the food, peat/ reduced is a bit needy on the feeding side.

Keep the pics coming, im loving them. I went for a walk this morning and was keeping a look out for any in the gardens here. I think i saw a couple but not a clue what types.

Mike

Wow... I don't come on here for a few days, and there are kinds of cool new arisaemas. My modest new contribution is A. angustatum v. peninsulae, a smallish plant from eastern Asia... looks kind of like a small green triphyllum, but with a more "overhanging" spathe:
Don

O.K., so it's not an arisaema... but nobody's going to start a pinellia thread, and they fit right in (P. tripartita atropurpurea):

ZD
i see above that you are one of the few that have the real A.ringens from Asia
to me it looks like there are only 2 real ones in the plantfiles http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/560/index.html
they are
rcn48's http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/99637/
&
bootnadall's http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/29444/
the rest look to be A.triphyllum
the question i have is where did you get your Japanese A,ringens ?

Dick in Sunny 50° Hiouchi :-)

I like the green spadix on P. tripartita atropurpurea, does that one have a scent?

I'm amazed so many have the wrong plant in the A ringens entry in PF, I wonder if one put a pic in and the rest followed. They look like A triphyllum, there's a lot more than I would expect to see and being a native a lot of people will have them.

I measured the dangly bit on my speciosum, not as long as it appeared but if I could get to the end of it I would say 16". The very long tip of the spathe makes it look long, and that had dropped to a horizontal position when I looked last night. The length of the horizontal part is 6.5", the tube about 3.5" tall.

I got my ringens from Plant Delights of North Carolina, so I'd expect it's right; I imagine Tony Avent, who runs P.D. knows as much about arisaemas as anybody in this country in mainstream commercial horticulture... I didn't know the plant files were mucked up over this species. There seems to be as much confusion (or misrepresentation) over what you get for a given arisaema species in this country as any genus I know of, but triphyllum and ringens would not seem to have a lot in common... that's kind of amusing (or sad).
The pinellia I showed doesn't have any scent I've noticed, but I don't have a great sense of smell. I'll go stick my nose in it.
Don

zonedenial, I think a lot of people who have a plant to add don't even know there is more than one species of that plant. I came across the same problem with Clivia once, a non-subscriber who bought a plant and added it to the entry they found that was a Clivia, in this case it was a hybrid added to a species entry which was way different. They just didn't realise.

Here it is, A speciosum in full. The dangly thing is 22" long from the first outward curve after the downward swerve..

Notice the areodynamic shape of the leaves, they are designed by clever mother nature to fall backwards, away from the spathe.

The midrib is towards the back edge of the leaf, there is a fine red edge all around the leaf.

Under the hood..

That is spectacular!!