Re: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid/ Alocasia cucullata (Lour) G. Don

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
----- Original Message -----
From: l*@pixar.com
To: aroid-l@gizmoworks.com
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 12:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid/ Alocasia cucullata (Lour) G. Don

Folks,

I highly suspect you'll find the Alocasia cucullata clone which Tony Avent has
under cultivation in North Carolina (available thru PDN) to be of great interest.

Look familiar-?!!

I was so convinced a layout error had occurred when I first came across this
image that I sent Tony an email, about a month ago, suggesting someone had
swapped 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 twisted tip of A. cuculata.  The plant pictured as A. odora is actually correct also, although it is photographed early in the season.  I wouldn't believe this either unless I'd seen the plants in person and took the photos.  Both id's have been confirmed in person by quite a few aroid authorities."

Are we witnessing a spontaneous mutation, coincidentally occurring 7,700km
and an ocean apart?  Is this particular variation genetically encoded in one or
more lines of Alocasia cucullata, i.e. do these two individual plants in HI and NC
somehow share common ancestry?  I leave it to finer minds than my own to decipher.

  -Dan

*TA: my apologies for posting this without your prior permission... 


On Mar 30, 2007, at 7:43 AM, Denis Rotolante wrote:

Could proposed natural hybrid merely be an aneuploid or polyploid seedling of Alocasia cucullata with thicker, broader leaves and more pronounced interveinal puckering? Whatever it is it is an improvement over plain old A. cucullata. See if it gets bigger than the standard cucullata when it matures.
 
 
Denis
Silver Krome Gardens
-----Original Message-----
From: aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com [aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com] On Behalf Of alocasia
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 1:24 PM
To: Discussion of aroids
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid

The 'thing' is off course interesant,and seem to have both
part of colocasia gigantea and alocasia cuculata....
But i don't think that the last pic(but pic number 1) is colocasia gigantea.Colocasia have more round leaves,in
all plants that i know.This plant seem more a xanthosoma
for me.And if i know that some cross were made between colocasia and alocasia,i don't think that it could be possible between xanthosoma and alocasia.Mr Hay?Mr Boyce?What are thinking the experts?
----- Original Message -----
From: e*@hawaii.rr.com
To: aroid-l@gizmoworks.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:50 PM
Subject: [Aroid-l] Natural Hybrid

 
Hi,
 
I thought this might be of interest to some of you Aroiders out there, so I thought I would share these images of something I found growing in the yard, and the two plants I suspect this new plant came from.

In our yard, here on Oahu, we have a large patch of Colocasia gigantea growing somewhat wild and we also have two old Alocasia cuculata 'shrubs'.

While clearing out some white ginger that was taking over, I came upon a small plant of something that was definitely different appearing from anything else in the yard.  I cleared around it and let it grow. 

It's now been about 8 months since this discovery and it is turning out to be a really interesting plant.

The blades are developing an interesting pucker between the veins.  This characteristic is becoming more pronounced with each new blade as they harden off.

I'll be interested in seeing if it obtains the proportions of the Colocasia gigantea.

My only explanation for this plant is that it must be a natural hybrid of the two.

Does anyone know if  Alocasia cuculata been crossed with Colocasia gigantea intentionally before?  and what do you call an Alocasia X Colocasia?

Thanks,  Windy Aubrey


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