[Aroid-l] Mutations/ Natural Hybrid/ Alocasia cucullata (Lour) G. Don

From: "Julius Boos" <ju-bo at msn.com> on 2007.03.31 at 16:24:21(15538) Reply-To : Discussion of aroids Sent : Friday, March 30, 2007 4:42 PM To : Discussion of aroids Subject : Re: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid/ Alocasia cucullata (Lour) G. Don Dear Folks, I generally never indulde in 'I told you so`s" in my notes, But--- I have been preaching for years on how quickly (both in geological time AND sometimes in just a few years!) aroids can and do mutate! Recall the VERY rapid increase in the number of vars./clones of Colocasia esculenta on Hawaii, which took just a few hundred/thousand years to mutate or be increased dramatically by selective cultivation of vegetative mutations. It has increased to many hundreds of distinct vars., as it is believed that the earliest settlers brought just a few vars. of this food-plant with them when they arrived during their epic canoe-journeys across the Pacific ocean. Today there were/are several hundred recognisable clones of this plant in Hawaii. Then there is the Xanthosoma sp. with the little 'frills/lips" under the leaf blade, it will mutate so that you can not recognize a sucker or off-shoot as being produced by the 'mother plant". I`m a little concerned by the number of veins we can observe on the leaf blade of Tony`s plant in his pic., vs. those on both the 'new' mutation AND the original A. cuculata in Windy`s photos, Tony`s plant sem to have many more! The Best, Julius +More Folks, I highly suspect you'll find the Alocasia cucullata clone which Tony Avent has under cultivation in North Carolina (available thru PDN) to be of great interest. Please see: http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/04795.html Look familiar-?!! I was so convinced a layout error had occurred when I first came across this image that I sent Tony an email, about a month ago, suggesting someone had swapped his images of A. cucullata and A. odora. Here follows Tony's reply*: "I checked the images and believe it or not, they are not reversed. Our oldest clumps of A. cucculata changed appearance dramatically as they matured to look more like a dwarf clump of A. odora that what we typically think of as A. cucculata. We were quite surprised, but the two photos of A. cuculata are the same clone...just several years apart. If you look close you'll see few immature leaves toward the top and note that even the mature leaves still have the characteristic twisted tip of A. cuculata. The plant pictured as A. odora is actually correct also, although it is photographed early in the season. I wouldn't believe this either unless I'd seen the plants in person and took the photos. Both id's have been confirmed in person by quite a few aroid authorities." Are we witnessing a spontaneous mutation, coincidentally occurring 7,700km and an ocean apart? Is this particular variation genetically encoded in one or more lines of Alocasia cucullata, i.e. do these two individual plants in HI and NC somehow share common ancestry? I leave it to finer minds than my own to decipher. -Dan *TA: my apologies for posting this without your prior permission... On Mar 30, 2007, at 7:43 AM, Denis Rotolante wrote: Could proposed natural hybrid merely be an aneuploid or polyploid seedling of Alocasia cucullata with thicker, broader leaves and more pronounced interveinal puckering? Whatever it is it is an improvement over plain old A. cucullata. See if it gets bigger than the standard cucullata when it matures. Denis Silver Krome Gardens -----Original Message----- From: aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com [mailto:aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com] On Behalf Of alocasia Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 1:24 PM To: Discussion of aroids Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid The 'thing' is off course interesant,and seem to have both part of colocasia gigantea and alocasia cuculata.... But i don't think that the last pic(but pic number 1) is colocasia gigantea.Colocasia have more round leaves,in all plants that i know.This plant seem more a xanthosoma for me.And if i know that some cross were made between colocasia and alocasia,i don't think that it could be possible between xanthosoma and alocasia.Mr Hay?Mr Boyce?What are thinking the experts? ----- Original Message ----- From: Windy Aubrey To: Discussion of aroids Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:50 PM Subject: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid Hi, I thought this might be of interest to some of you Aroiders out there, so I thought I would share these images of something I found growing in the yard, and the two plants I suspect this new plant came from. In our yard, here on Oahu, we have a large patch of Colocasia gigantea growing somewhat wild and we also have two old Alocasia cuculata 'shrubs'. While clearing out some white ginger that was taking over, I came upon a small plant of something that was definitely different appearing from anything else in the yard. I cleared around it and let it grow. It's now been about 8 months since this discovery and it is turning out to be a really interesting plant. The blades are developing an interesting pucker between the veins. This characteristic is becoming more pronounced with each new blade as they harden off. I'll be interested in seeing if it obtains the proportions of the Colocasia gigantea. My only explanation for this plant is that it must be a natural hybrid of the two. Does anyone know if Alocasia cuculata been crossed with Colocasia gigantea intentionally before? and what do you call an Alocasia X Colocasia? Thanks, Windy Aubrey _______________________________________________ Aroid-l mailing list Aroid-l@gizmoworks.com http://www.gizmoworks.com/mailman/listinfo/aroid-l

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