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  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

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