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  Natural Hybrid/ Alocasia cucullata (Lour) G. Don
From: Dan Levin <levin at pixar.com> on 2007.03.30 at 16:42:35(15534)
Folks,I highly suspect you'll find the Alocasia cucullata clone which Tony Avent hasunder cultivation in North Carolina (available thru PDN) to be of great interest.Please see: http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/04795.htmlLook familiar-?!!I was so convinced a layout error had occurred when I first came across thisimage that I sent Tony an email, about a month ago, suggesting someone hadswapped 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 tw
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From: "Peter Boyce" <botanist at malesiana.com> on 2007.03.31 at 23:42:18(15539)
What interests me most is that A.
cucullata is itself (together with A. macrorrhizos) something of
an enigma. It is not known in the wild and throughout its 'natural' range is
only ever found in association with human disturbance. Those of you familiar
with Thailand and Indo-China will have seen it most often planted in the
compounds of Buddhist temples where it is favoured as 'lucky' or, if you ask
older monks and nuns, because it is believed to protect the temple from evil
spirits and well as bad luck. In Lao I have seen it planted for the same purpose
around the communal rice stores in villages of several of the hill tribe
peoples.

My point here is that in all probability A.
cucullata is a stabilized culton of perhaps A. odora (which is
indigenous and widespread throughout the 'range' of A. cucullata)
maintained for the most part by human intervention, or maybe a hybrid of A.
odora and/or A. macrorrhizos. There is a possibility that what we
are witnessing is a 'reversion' to the progenitor or one of the progeniting
parents. However, I hasten to add that I am no geneticist and that is this all,
perhaps fanciful, speculation.

Peter

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From: "Alistair Hay" <ajmhay at hotmail.com> on 2007.04.03 at 01:36:23(15543)
I agree with Peter on this though I don't see much sign of A. macrorrhizos in A. cucullata: it is very likely close to odora and possibly a cultigen and sport from it.
I have seen what seemed to be an intermediate clone (between odora and cucullata) in a taro germ plasm collection in Hanoi which was rather similar to the plant under discussion here.

What interests me most is that A. cucullata is itself (together with A. macrorrhizos) something of an enigma. It is not known in the wild and throughout its 'natural' range is only ever found in association with human disturbance. Those of you familiar with Thailand and Indo-China will have seen it most often planted in the compounds of Buddhist temples where it is favoured as 'lucky' or, if you ask older monks and nuns, because it is believed to protect the temple from evil spirits and well as bad luck. In Lao I have seen it planted for the same purpose around the communal rice stores in villages of several of the hill tribe peoples.

My point here is that in all probability A. cucullata is a stabilized culton of perhaps A. odora (which is indigenous and widespread throughout the 'range' of A. cucullata) maintained for the most part by human intervention, or maybe a hybrid of A. odora and/or A. macrorrhizos. There is a possibility that what we are witnessing is a 'reversion' to the progenitor or one of the progeniting parents. However, I hasten to add that I am no geneticist and that is this all, perhaps fanciful, speculation.

Peter

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From: "Michael Pascall" <mickpascall at hotmail.com> on 2007.04.03 at 06:17:02(15544)
Michael Ferrero imported a very unusual Alocasia that he collected in
Vietnam imto the collection at Flecker Bot. Gdns . It looks a little like a
cucullata but all distorted in the foliage , it also has small puckered bits
underneath the leaf . It is very prolific ,

Michael Pascall,

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From: "Marek Argent" <abri1973 at wp.pl> on 2007.04.04 at 01:30:35(15547)
Hello everybody who's interested in the "new"
Alocasia cucullata.

I have posted the photos and some of the Aroid-L
discussion posts in the Aroid ID Center.
Recently I have problems to access the IAS' www.aroid.org site,
if you have also such problems you can always
enter the ID Center using this URL: www.aroidid.prv.pl

Regards
Marek

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