RE: [Aroid-l] Anthurium regale and the Issue of Botanical Specimens

From: "Julius Boos" <ju-bo at msn.com> on 2007.03.05 at 07:53:52(15390) Reply-To : Discussion of aroids Sent : Friday, March 2, 2007 1:58 PM To : Discussion of aroids Subject : [Aroid-l] Anthurium regale and the Issue of Botanical Specimens Dear Ted, I have a LITTLE knowledge that I will share with us friends, as I was blessed to do some work with the late Lynn Hannon who was Tom Croat`s 'right hand man' during his extensive collecting jaunts in Ecuador. She always told me that an infloresence SHOULD always be collected when it was at male anthesis, as this way it generally was at its peak of development. Steve`s invaluable observations, documented on film for ONE Anthurium species has demonstrated how different, at least in its colors, one spadix can be during its LONG development, from a yellow color to ivory to purple. Tom Croat has commented on how very valuable to Scientists this documentation is proving to be, and for the future I GUESS all a colloctor will be able to do is make a note something like "specimen seemingly before male anthesis', or 'specimen post-male anthesis" etc. on wild-collected specimens. I`m certain that all observations on home-grown, DOCUMENTED wild collected plants would be welcomed by Scientists like Dr. Croat at MOBOT. I hope that these comments are helpful. Julius +More Have you folks been following Steve Lucas's developing story about the Anthurium regale bloom? The point that interests me here the most is the morphological and color changes that this inflorescence has displayed over the LONG bloom process. What happens if a scientifically-minded collector happens upon such a plant in the early stages of bloom? Let's assume she secures a specimen and describes it with perfect accuracy. Later, another collector makes a hike into the same area, finds an exact clone of the first specimen in bloom, but at a maturation date six weeks later than was available to the first collector, when the inflorescence is a completely different color and when all the little "naughty bits" have morphed. How does the taxonomist know that the two plants are the same? It seems to this untrained observer that only a painstaking record such as that on Steve's site would be adequate to describe a species and avoid the ambiguity. Here is the address in case you have not seen it yet:<< http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Anthurium%20regale%20spathe%20page%205%20pc.html __ _______________________________________________ Aroid-l mailing list Aroid-l@gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l

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