ABSTRACT:

Though a number of people were interested in Araceae and had been working independently on the family Araceae since the early 1960s no organized meeting of aroid specialists was held before the founding of the International Aroid Society in Miami. That organization was founded on June 17, 1977. Little research had been carried out on the family since Adolf Engler's epoch studies around the turn of the century. The initiation of the International Aroid Society and the onset of publication of the journal Aroideana, instigated primarily through the efforts of its first editor, Michael Madison, have brought great progress in investigation of the Araceae.