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Wild, Wonderful Aroids - Part 4, Arisaema - Page 2

© Marge Talt

The leaves, normally green, can be amazingly black. Although "triphyllum" signifies three leaflets (the norm for this species), plants have been recorded with five leaflets. There are also spotted and variegated forms.

Gusman reports that aberrations, like the double spath thrown by this plant, seem frequent in A. triphyllum. I was rather disappointed to read this, thinking I had something totally unique. This plant appeared two years ago in a newly made terrace of barely amended red clay, amongst a swath of daffodils - I did not plant it - and grew about twice as tall as any other in my garden or woodland.

I looked for it last season - nary a sign that it had ever been, but I have these photos, so it was not a figment of my imagination. I did not root around in the soil to see if the tuber was extant, but I will check for it again this year in case it was simply resting from the effort of producing two spathes.

Neither inflorescence on my twin plant set fruit, so both must have been male.

Unlike most plants, who are either male, female or carry both flower sexes on the same plant (hermaphrodite), most Arisaema can be male one year and female the next. Young plants are almost always male. A few species, A tortuosum, A. consanguineum, A. heterophyllum and A. dracontium always have both sexes on the same plant when they are mature. A. flavum always does, mature or not.

Once a tuber on those sex-changing species has built up enough reserves to produce fruit, it flowers as a female. Depending on growing conditions, it may continue as a female or revert back to male, and will often revert back the year after flowering.

This fascinating factoid is one way that these plants assure their success. Individual plants can live for many years; it is believed that this sex-changing ability helps them to survive by husbanding their resources when the going gets rough.

Arisaema triphyllum 'Black Beauty', seen and photographed at Tony Avent's marvelous Juniper Level Botanic Gardens (the raison d'etra for his equally fabulous nursery, Plant Delights), is, indeed a beauty. Not finding any information about this plant, I asked Tony and he said:

"The history of Arisaema triphyllum 'Black Beauty' is as follows: It was found by Bob McCartney of Woodlanders Nursery in the 1980's in a bog in central Florida. Bob maintains a small patch in SC. He has allowed us to work on propagation which has been painfully slow. We now have it in tissue culture and are optimistic that we will have plants for sale by 2005. It is truly an amazing one-of-a-kind plant with both black leaves and black-striped flowers."