[aroid-l] Silver leaf Philo (hastatum?) blooming - pics

Hello all,
(& sorry to those not Philodendron-inclined, for turning this topic into a
saga...)

Thank you, Eduardo (& Tom)  for the helpful info re. P. hastatum.
I've now had a good look at the blooming Philo 'Silver Sword' and it is overall
a close match to your description; I have some pics of it (address below).
However, there seem to be a couple of differences in the flowering parts:
'Silver Sword' has 11-13 locules per ovary, rather than 5-6; and the biggest
plants sometimes have 2 inflorescences per leaf/sympodium.  Do you think the
greater no. of locules  falls within the variation you would expect for P.
hastatum, or might that indicate that it's perhaps a different species?


Here are few other characteristics of 'Silver Sword':
* petioles of juvenile (pre-sympodial) plants are sheathed along their entire
length; the wings of the sheath usually project several millimetres beyond the
leaf base.
* Adult foliage still quite silvery, though not as much as juveniles
* Stamens cream coloured, in groups of 3 or (most often) 4.
* Staminodial/staminate portion of spadix secretes drops of sticky
reddish-caramel coloured  fluid during shedding of pollen
* Spathe is apple-green outside, and is paler in the 'blade' part, fading to
greenish-cream toward the apex. Spathe inside is greenish-off-white; the tube
has  translucent vertical "veins" visible toward the base, and also short,
light brown squiggly lines on the surface
* The peduncle is usually slightly shorter than the spathe, and a bit flattened
(cf. petioles)
* I vaguely remember the fruits being beige or straw-coloured.


If anyone's interested, some snapshots of this flowering Philo reside at:
http://au.photos.yahoo.com/consternation3000 -  click on 'vegetal'  to open the
album/ folder containing the pix.

Anyway, for those still interested, over the next couple of weeks I'll post
some more notes and snapshots of recently flowering Philos, including a couple
of sp.  related to 'Silver Sword' which have been successfully cross-pollinated
with it and have yielded seedlings.

Cheers,
Eugene



Eugene Hoh
Sydney, Australia
hohe@symphony.net.au



Eduardo Goncalves wrote:

> Dear Eugene,
>
>    I have just checked in my plants to see if they are in flower, but they
> are not yet. So here follows a few info on how to recognize it:
>
> Vegetatively: Stems grayish, more or less smooth, internodes usually 1.5-2
> cm thick in adult (flowering plants); petioles a little flattened
> dorsiventrally; leaves sagittate-hastate (i.e., something between an
> arrowhead and an inverted "T"; young leaves silvery, getting greener with
> time. Fertile material: inflorescence usually solitary; spathe green
> outside, usually pale green inside (as far as I remember); female flowers
> with the stigma with a diameter smaller than the diameter of the ovaries;
> ovaries with 5-6 locules and 2-4 per ovules per locule, attached nearby the
> base of the ovule. I do not remember the color of the berries.
>    In the field the plant is a low climber, usually climbing up to the first
> 1.5-2 m of the host tree. The same is true for cultivated plants. It rarely
> climbs high in the host tree or totem. Well, I think it is enough to
> recognize. Any specific question, feel free to ask.
>
>                             Very best wishes,
>
>                                     Eduardo.
>
> Eduardo G. Goncalves
> Laboratorio de Fitoquimica
> Depto. de Botanica - IB
> Universidade de Sao Paulo
> Caixa Postal 11461 - CEP 05422-970
> Sao Paulo - SP - BRAZIL
> e-mail: edggon@hotmail.com
>         edggon@ib.usp.br
> Phone: 55 11 3091-7532
> FAX  : 55 11 3091-7547

>
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