Re: Alocasia Amazonica versus Alocasia Polly

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Dear Steve,

          I think you will find Polly’s picture on AgriStarts website.  They grow a wide variety of Alocasias.   John.

 

 

I need good photos of the plant sold as Alocasia Polly.  Not anything with a tag that says Alocasia Amazonica but specifically Alocasia Polly.  I think we're closer to figuring this out.

André appears to have written in 1891 in Review Hortic about an an Alocasia hybrid between Alocasia sanderiana and Alocasia lowii.  Alocasia lowii is now correctly Alocasia longiloba.   Those parents were later ascribed to Alocasia Amazonica in error since the parents of that plant are Alocasia sanderiana x Alocasia watsoniana.  As far as I can tell André referred to the plant as "mortefontanensis".

It is beginning to look like André's mortefontanensis had the same parents as the plant sold as Alocasia Polly. If that is true then André's plant is not the same hybrid as Salvadore  Mauro's plant bred at his Amazon Nursery in Miami. That would lead me to believe that Alocasia Polly and Alocasia Amazonica should not be confused as the same plant.

It also appears some unidentified researcher elected to call André's mortefontanensis Alocasia x amazonica due to the popularity of the hybrid plant with growers when in fact it should still be called Alocasia x mortefontanensis or something on that order.

It makes no sense for a well known European hybrid which I have now been told has been grown since the late 1800's or early 1900's to be called Alocasia x amazonica when the reason for the use of the name "Amazonica" is obvious due to the name of  Salvadore  Mauro's nursery.


Steve
www.ExoticRainforest.com