Re: Re: Lysichitum camtschatcense

In a message dated 5/5/99, 2:43:55 PM, aroid-l@mobot.org writes:
<<My 1916 issue of Bailey says the range is E. Siberia, Japan, Alaska,
Oregon.

Oregon?  I should think that would put it not only in Hitchcock and Cronquist 
(where I do not recall seeing it), but in popular guides to Pacific States 
flowers.  Perhaps your old source used mislabeled specimens; or perhaps it 
once existed in Oregon, but has been extirpated there.  I must look into 
this....

  It does grow on the unpopulated outer coast of Vancouver
Island, and is definitely not introduced there.

Interesting.  The next question would be, do L. camschatcense and L. 
americanus ever occur naturally together?  I do not suppose L. americanus 
overlaps into Asia.  One wonders if americanus is derived from camschatcense; 
although intuitively it would seem that a species with unpigmented spathes 
would appear by mutation from one with yellow pigment, since losing a trait 
is more likely than gaining one.

The March 1994 issue of The Garden has a cover picture of a hybrid of L.
camtschatcense and L. americanum, almost white, and a few words about it
growing in a Cornish garden.>>

One wonders, do such hybrids occur in nature as well?

I cannot answer these questions where I am currently located; we do not have 
camschatcense here in Washington State (or if we do, it must be extremely 
rare).

Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large
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