From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at email.msn.com> on 2001.12.11 at 23:47:10(7886)
Dear Petra,
Can you get or do you have Mayo`s 'A Revision of Philodendron subgenus
Meconostigma (Araceae)', Kew Bullitin Vol. 46 ( I have a copy) and his 1990
'History and infragenitic nomenclature of Philodendron (Araceae) Kew Bull.
45 ( 1 ): 37-71 ( I do NOT have a copy of this!)? Though he does not give
precise dates in his 'revision' paper (it seems that the 1990 paper has more
detaile on the introduction dates) , there is enough recorded to know that
this species (there is still confusion over exactly how many 'good' species
there are in the complex, some w/ green spathes, others w/ maroon spathe
exteriors) was in Europe in the early 1800`s, Schott brought back specimens
for cultivation to Vienna (Mayo notes that the name had been validly
published in 1837), and must have spread to the Americas sometime after
that.
An interesting observation I have made is that in pre-tissue culture days,
several ( ? ) years ago, this plant used to be grown in commercial
quantities here in WPB from seed obtained by hand-pollination. The plants
thus produced showed quite a wide range of leaf form, differently colored
petioles/veins and overall form/shape, all of which were 'lost' once they
began to produce them by using just one 'donner' mother plant in tissue
culture.
In the collection of Jim Enck, a long-time member of the IAS here in WPB,
Joep Moonen, (who visited Jim with me a couple/three years ago), was amazed
and thrilled to see some of the OLD selections of this now VERY common but
'all the same' plant that Jim had obtained 'way back when' from commercially
available plants grown from seed! A couple were FAR superior to the one
'clone' now being produced in mass.
Cheers,
Julius
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