Re: [aroid-l] alocasia nomenclature question

From: "Peter Boyce" peterboyce at myjaring.net> on 2003.11.14 at 00:23:31(10798) RE: alocasia nomenclature questionHi Darrin Tom has cc'd your Alocasia question to me for comment. First, a bit of background on the thorny issue of the correct names to apply to cultivated elements of Alocasia longiloba. Alocasia longiloba is, in the wild, a highly variable species, with there existing populations of plants that are stably 'distinct' from typical A. longiloba, others where plants intergrade from one 'species' to the next and others where plants are a complete mix of distinct and indistinct plants, all intergrading. At times over the past 200-odd years plant collectors have brought into cultivation the most striking plants from these various populations and introduced them into cultivation from where they were often described as new species but, and this is the critical thing, without the ability to refer back to the wild originating population to check whether the distinctness of the new species was stable. The result of this is that when it came time to study the wild populations in order to make some sense of the things in cultivation it became clear that, despite the 'distinctness ' of many of the plants in cultivation, all the barriers separating say A. lowii from A. longiloba fell to pieces in the wild and that these 'species' are in fact all simply elements from within the pool of natural variation that is exhibited by A. longiloba. Well, this was fine and dandy for the botanists, who wanted a handle on the species in the wild and defined it as a widely variable single entity, but was no good whatsoever for horticulturalists who could clearly differentiate between the plant that grow as A. lowii and that which they grow as A. longiloba. The solution used was to create a series of informal 'groups' to account for and give names to the most distinct elements displayed in A. longiloba in the broad sense. The result of all this is that the full synonymy of A. longiloba is: Alocasia longiloba Miq. +More Alocasia longiloba Miq. Caladium veitchii Lindley - Alocasia veitchii (Lindley) Schott ('veitchi') - Alocasia lowii var. veitchii (Lindley) Engl. - A. lowii var. picta Hook.f. Caladium? lowii Lem. Alocasia lowii Hook. Alocasia korthalsii Schott Alocasia singaporensis Linden Alocasia lowii var. picta Hook.f. Alocasia thibautiana Mast. Alocasia denudata Engl. Alocasia putzeysii ('putzeysi') N.E. Br. Alocasia eminens N.E. Br. Alocasia watsoniana Mast. Alocasia amabilis W. Bull Alocasia curtisii N.E. Br. Alocasia cuspidata Engl. Alocasia denudata var. elongata Engl. The informal groups are: a. 'denudata' - Alocasia singaporensis Linden - Alocasia denudata Engl. - Alocasia denudata var. elongata Engl. 'longiloba' - Alocasia longiloba Miq. s. str. - Alocasia cuspidata Engl. - ?Caladium veitchii Lindl. - Alocasia veitchii (Lindl.) Schott - Alocasia lowii var. veitchii (Lindl.) Engl. - Alocasia amabilis W. Bull. 'putzeysii' - Alocasia putzeysii N.E. Br. 'watsoniana' - Alocasia watsoniana Mast 'korthalsii' - Alocasia korthalsii Schott 'thibautiana' - Alocasia thibautiana Mast. - Alocasia curtisii N.E. Br. 'lowii' - Alocasia lowii Hook. f. - Alocasia lowii var. picta Hook.f. - Alocasia eminens N.E. Br. Hope this helps some Pete

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