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  Re: Re: Amorphophallus bulbifer stories
From: mb.cfg at mindspring.com on 2000.07.11 at 21:47:12(5049)
To Jody/Albert and all,

If it is any help at all, I have noticed that Amorphs, and be very
unpredictable as far as their growth cycle. Some seem to come up early,
some come up late, go down early, go down late, etc..

I have regularly observed that species act differently from year to year
with little explanation. I can recently remember last "winter" in Dewey's
shadehouse, plants were "sprouting" in November and later. There was of
course no explanation for this, but I do have a theory:

Most Amorphophallus plants come from areas that are extremely tropical. I
dont just mean tropical, I mean "extremely" tropical. Even much more so
than S. Florida (where I live). What this translates to is that the
climatic environment of all of these plants tends to be very stable and
they generally do not experience the extremes we do. This may account for
plants not acting with "super" predictability in cultivation. For example,
my A. titanum specimen plants seem to always go dormant in the "spring"
very much like the ones at Fairchild gardens. Now, I am in the Northern
hemisphere, the same as where the plants grow naturally, yet "springtime"
does not seem like an appropriate time to go dormant. You would imagine
that "winter" would make more sense, so that the plant would avoid adverse
weather conditions (lack of rain, cooler or colder temps, etc...)

Another issue is the "skipped season", I have read that some plants, just
outright can stay dormant and miss an entire season. My A. curvist. plant
is not yet up this year and upon further inspection does not look like it
is going to even try. It has been in moist soil for well over 5 months and
it is still solid, unrotted and yet it has not even sent out roots. It
looks like it is going to sleep this one out.

Who knows, they are just weird!

Marc Burack

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