From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at msn.com> on 2006.08.20 at 12:18:53(14535)
Reply-To : Discussion of aroids
Sent : Saturday, August 19, 2006 6:48 PM
To : "Discussion of aroids"
Subject : Re: [Aroid-l] Brooklyn Titan blooming
A Hello to ALL my friends on Aroid-L,
Too true, Dan, it certainly is wonderful to see a man like Alan Galloway`s
efforts and hard work acknowledged by Dave Horak who works for such a major
Bot. Garden. VERY well done, Alan, Dave and Dan!!
While we are on this subject, I`d like to take the opportunity to bring up
the name of one of if not the first person responsible for these now
seemingly common events, the blooming of the icon of all aroids,
Amorphophallus titanum. He was Dr. James (Jim) Symon, who pased away on
Oct. 21st., 1995. I think that what I wrote as my dedication on one of my
papers published in Aroideana back in 1997 says it all and bears repeating
at this time---
"I wish to dedicate this work to my friend, Dr. James Symon who has given
his all to investigate the species of giant Amorphophallus and to bring them
into cultivation via their seeds, all at his own expense. He has brought
happiness to many of his colleagues and to myself, but the final fruits of
his dream will only arrive when these seeds of A. titanum, A. gigas and
others, so joyfully collected and generously given, grow to maturity and
produce their magnificent inflorescences and their powerful odor can be
experienced by the masses!"
If at all possible, could the people who now have plants of these giants
that have bloomed or are blooming let us know, and more importantly, KEEP
RECORDS of where the seeds of these plants originated, as I do know that
besides Jim, a very few others, perhaps Alan, did manage to collect and
distribute seeds of these plants, and that the now-famous Craig Alen
actually produced a large number of viable seed from hand-pollination of
plants of A. titanum grown from wild-collected seed ex: Jim while Craig was
at Fairchild Gardens in Miami (Craig also bloomed A. gigas!!), but it would
be good to have some sort of record, much like a stud book kept by zoos on
rare animals, for these rare plants in our care.
Dan, please keep us informed of how the event goes and how well the plant
does, as one of the blooming events at Fairchild was 'spoilt', it was
suspected, by the moving of the plant with a seemingly mature bud ALMOST
ready to open from the humid area in the greenhouses where it was growing to
a larger and more acceptable area, the bud then 'sulked' and the bloom
refused to open! Good Luck! I so hope that you manage to obtain the
fresh pollen and that your plant in question produce viable seed!
Congrats to all involved, and keep up the great work!
Julius Boos
| +More |
WPB,
FLORIDA
Hi David,
Wonderful to see you acknowlege the efforts of others like that!!
So, this was just posted on another forum and it is near you so perhaps your
pollen came come in useful very, very soon....a hobbyist grower has an Am.
titanum blooming as below:
"If you live in New England, here is your chance to see the corpse flower
unfold; I just came back from a visit --no lines right now; it is set up in
our local fire station. The immense plant has been raised by a hobby
botanist/oral surgeon in our town. Should be in flower tomorrow evening or
Monday.
Laconia is best known for Motorcycle Week -- this is something truly
different! Come one, come all. The $10.00 entrance charge will be used to
support Lakes Region General Hospital Healthcare Dental Resource Center and
the charitable efforts of the Laconia Kiwanis Club. Truly a "homegrown"
event:
Laconia Kiwanis Club in partnership with LRGHealthcare
Present
Rare Corpse Flower Bloom
at Lakeport Fire Station in Laconia NH
AUGUST 19th - August 27th 2006
Link with information and continuous photos:
http://www.laconiaschools.org/corpseflower/ "
These seem to be blooming like dandelions anymore :o)
Dan
Zone 6a
Gibsonia, PA
----- Original Message ----- From: "Horak, David"
To: "Discussion of aroids"
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 11:17 AM
Subject: [Aroid-l] Brooklyn Titan blooming
Dear All,
Our Titan is done and the spadix collapsed, but thanks to the generous
donation of pollen from Virginia Tech's division of Biological Sciences,
we are waiting to see if our pollination attempts have succeeded. There
was of course a tremendous amount of hype but that withstanding the
public really embraced our little event. It was special in that it
proved to many of us that plants and collections can compel the public
to come to a garden and that you do not necessarily have to resort to
song and dance nonsense to "entertain" folks. That said, the following
link is a time lapse video put together by our web person of the
blooming and really kind of fun. I guess that this can be construed to
be a bit of "song and dance"...but oh, what the heck.
http://www.bbg.org/vis2/2006/titan/video/index.html
I also want to publicly express a note of appreciation, in this forum,
to Alan Galloway who ten years ago generously donated this
plant/seedling to the Garden. The craziness surrounding this kind of
event (as many of you now have had the pleasure of experiencing)
inadvertently short changed his role in this. This event is a testimony
to the crucial role that hobbyists play in conservation and the
dissemination of information and special plants. It can often be
difficult to reciprocate, but botanical institutions do depend on your
dedication, enthusiasm and generosity regardless of whether it is ever
properly acknowledged. Alan made a lot of New Yorkers happy and I
personally applaud him as well as all of you for the generosity of your
knowledge, experience and plants. Thank you.
We did harvest pollen, so if anyone has a need contact me and I will see
what we can do.
Dave Horak
<<
_______________________________________________
Aroid-l mailing list
Aroid-l@gizmoworks.com
http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l
|
IAS on Facebook
IAS on Instagram
