[Aroid-l] Philo ID

From: ju-bo at msn.com (ju-bo at msn.com) on 2008.01.16 at 11:01:16(16955) ---------------------------------------- > Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:49:59 -0500 > From: chammer at cfl.rr.com > To: aroid-l at gizmoworks.com > Subject: [Aroid-l] Philo ID Dear Russ, In trying to I.D. this plant, we have to enter into some speculation and assumption! The squamules in youir photo at the bases of the petioles are VERY distinctive, and diaognostic for the species P. bipinnatifidium, shown in your good jpeg as being flattish, long and flexible. In his paper on Meconostigmas in Aroideana Vol. 25 of 2002, Dr. Goncalves discusses, describes and illustrates these in a good photo of the species, and compares them to those of P. mello-barettoanum which are short, stout spines. P. mello-barettoanum occurs quite commonly in older collections in the Miami area, notably at the OLD Parrot Jungle and at Fairchild Gardens. With its divided leaves, it has been mistaken and confused with P. bipinnatifidium. The leaf you photographed is not as deeply divided as the ''modern'' plants of P. bipinnatifiduum (A.K.A. P.''selloum") which are produced commercially these days in the thousands by tissue culture. We must keep in mind that ALL these thousands of plants are clones of just one plant, probably selected for its leaf shape and divisions. The plant in your photo, based on speculation on its origins from the old orchid jungle, would pre-date the tissue culture, and would have been produced by hand-pollination. I have spoken with some of the guys who used to produce plants of P. ''selloum'' (= P. bipinnatifidium) in commercial quantities by hand pollination/seed. They all had large mature plants or ''breeders'' which they hand pollinated, and the seed was collected, washed and sown . The resulting plants from seed obviously showed genitic variations to the leaf shape, size, and color not seen in todays tissue cultured plants. I speculate that your plant is one of these older seed-produced plants. Also, keep an eye on the older leaves as your plant matures or gets larger, as when older/larger they might illustrate more and deeper divisions. I hope this helps. Julius +More > Didn't realize I already had this photo of the stem. > Russ > central Fla

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