Rare & beautiful Caladium available

From: "Julius Boos" ju-bo at email.msn.com> on 1999.12.14 at 20:02:41(3949) I have received a number of tubers of one of the rarer Caladium species, Caladium picturatum C. Koch, recently collected on Trinidad, W.I. I am offering these for sale, all money raised will go to benefit an Aroid Research College student in another country who is in dire need of an amount of money to complete their doctorate. Their identity will remain confidential. The tubers are from between aprox. 1/2" to 1 1/2" in dia. Please contact me directly at the address below for pricing (prices are very reasonable). ju-bo@msn.com +More If you are interested in obtaining one or a few of these valuable tubers, and by so doing, assisting a student in completing their education. I will ship to Florida growers now and to others in the colder Northern Zones when it warms up in spring. Photographs of this wonderful plant can be viewed either in 'Aroideana' Vol 16, pgs. 6+7, Figs 2, 3 and 4, and also on Professor Paul Resslar`s Caladium pages with the caption 'N. E. Trinidad'--- http://www.vwc.edu/library_tech/wwwpages/presslar/greenhouse/caladium/caladi um.htm (note the "underscore" between 'library' and 'tech'). A few notes on this and other rare Caladium species-- This is one species that does not appear to have been used in the Caladium breeding programs in Florida or in other countries as both C. bicolor and C. schomburgkii have, and which have even been crossed to produce the cultivars "Gingerland", "White wing" and others. Since the publication of the article in Aroideana Vol. 16, I have found that these Caladiums plus C. schomburgkii and C. humboldtii are considered 'special' (sacred?) plants by the inhabitants of the area where they are found, and are 'traded' only between families who know of their alleged 'powers'. These wonderful people are not prone to giving plants to the casual visitor to the village, and will not show a visitor these plants in the wild. The above may be responsible for their wide distribution throughout the Amazon region (I have seen this same Caladium from Amazonium Brazil, Br. Guiana and Amazonium Peru in addition to Trinidad, W.I.), and in the case of C. humboldtii, this practice may be actually responsible for it`s very existence, as this species has never been collected or cultivated in a fertile state, and is passed from village to village in S. America. The following article "Indian Charms", in Tropical Wildlife in British Guiana. Vol 1, 488-499, The New York Zoological Society, New York, gives wonderful insights into the esteem in which this plant and other Aroids are held by the Indians as love and hunting 'charms'." Julius

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