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  Re: [Aroid-l] Cyrtosperma merkusii--the story
From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at msn.com> on 2006.10.01 at 18:18:49(14724)
Reply-To : Discussion of aroids
Sent : Saturday, September 30, 2006 11:40 PM
To : Discussion of aroids
Subject : Re: [Aroid-l] Cyrtosperma merkusii--the story

Dear ALl,

As some of you have 'heard' me say here on aroid-l, aroids are VERY
'plastic' plants, and can and do evolve VERY quickly vegetatively, as we
have seen that even an offshoot from a 'mother' plant can grow to look and
TASTE differently to the 'mother'. The best way to illustrate this is to
consider Colocasia esculenta (taro) in Hawaii, in just a couple thousand
years man has managed to develope several HUNDRED 'cultivars'/clones just by
his selection, NOT by breeding or seed/sexual reproduction, and these
hundreds come from just a very few original clones/varieties that were
brought to the Islands by the first human arrivals.
Presumably the same thing occurs with Cyrtosperma. As I said in my note,
there are many known cultivars of this one 'species', C. merkusii, so we can
expect to see slight differences in them through their range, and this is
NOT taking into account the growing conditions, as the plants at Fairchild
and in Munich probably originate from exactly the same collection/clone, and
both are growing indoors in shade and stillness, while the Hawaiian plant is
growing outside in sun and the wind.

Good Growing,

Julius

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