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A really great Asian aroid, the tuber produces a single giant shiny leaf every year. Not hardy, but it has done reasonably well in the conservatory,m as long as it is dry through the winter. Little bulbils are produced at the end of the season on stiff branching stems. The Alpine Garden Society description says: "Leaf stalks 10-15cm high, the leaf ovate-cordate and of smaller length. Spathes about 6cm long, the tube green and erect, blade yellow, fragrant, early summer. Bulbil shoots bearing many spreading or pendulous branches, the bulbils having long curly hairs. Himachal Pradesh to Sikkim, in forests, sometimes epiphytic or on mossy boulders, at 1200-2500m. The hardiest species. Worth trying out of doors in sheltered sites. My plant came from a bulb dealer but Crug Farm Plants collected the species in 1994 and their description says: "From a collection gathered on our first expedition to Sikkim in the autumn of 1994. A small aroid growing as an epiphyte which thrusts out long stolons with embryo tubers, which root into any leaf litter it comes into contact with. Bearing small white sweetly scented spathes ageing yellow, cupping a spadix of male flowers. These are born after the peltate to heart-shaped leaf with sometimes purple under-surfaces, go dormant. Probably best grown in a container or in a very sheltered shady frost free corner. |
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| 11th August 2006 | ||
