Aroids (the family Araceae) 2017

[Bart]

Hi Fermi, I'm surprised you haven't got a big, vigorous clump growing somewhere in a corner of your garden, because judging by all your posts everything appears to be growing outdoors, and well, where you live. I've been green with envy at times .
Arum pictum in my experience is very forgiving, I have moved them whilst in full growth. I suppose the best time is when they have just started to grow, so they do not get too bothered about a change in  humidity around the tuber. A bone dry summer rest seems to be a must, but it is perfectly happy at the foot of a big conifer in North Yorkshire. 4years from seed to flower I guess. I've got four more scent adventures to look forward to!

[Martin Sheader]

Biarum marmarisense is flowering well this year. I particularly like this pale form, with the flowers appearing well before the leaves.

[Maggi Young]

Biarum marmarisense is flowering well this year. I particularly like this pale form, with the flowers appearing well before the leaves.

I always  "hear" a background  chant of plainsong when I see photos of these little plants....

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Martin,
I didn't realise that you grew non-South American plants!
 
And grow them very well, too!

Hi Bart,
no clumps of this arum
I potted the 2 I've got into a bigger pot and will watch it next autumn when it breaks dormancy - or maybe will sniff it out
cheers
fermi

[sokol]

Biarum marmarisense is flowering well this year. I particularly like this pale form, with the flowers appearing well before the leaves.

Great display. I have more tubers year after year of this species but never had any flower.

[Martin Sheader]

Stefan, I obtained a tuber of this Biarum marmarisense many years ago. I could never get it to flower and it gradually wasted away, dwindling over several years. I dumped soil from the pots in my old soil heap, and later used this soil in a covered frame where I grow Patagonian oxalis. A couple of years later a biarum flower appeared among the oxalis and the tubers have increased rapidly since flowering every year. I now usually grow them in a mesh pot in the oxalis frame, lifting the pot and sinking in a clay pot for showing. I suppose the conditions that they have in the frame are: dryish (but not dry) and warm in summer when dormant; permanently moist soil in winter by seepage from the edges of the frame, though no overhead watering; poor sandy soil. I could never get the species to flower in pots, but it has chosen where it wants to flower and it's producing tubers rapidly.

[sokol]

Thanks Martin for your detailed answer. Maybe my soil is not sandy enough and I feed them a bit too much. Mine are also potted in a frame and covered when it is too cold outside but open for the rest of the time. Maybe I should also keep them drier during summer.

[Steve Garvie]

Biarum davisii -I grow this in a very lean free-draining mix. It gets a warm dry summer rest. I'm not sure what differences (if any) there are between this and B. marmarisense.

For some strange reason I always think of MacBeth's witches when I see this Biarum in flower.

[Johan K.]

Arum pictum.

[Peppa]

I wasn't expecting a second bloom of my Typhonium roxburghii this year. It seems like my husband is more sensitive to the smell of Aroids than I am, since he can't stand this and I don't have a problem with it. People obviously have different tolerances for different things, as he isn't bothered at all by the smell of certain Fritillaria, which I just can't abide.

[sokol]

Nice plant Peppa. It's the other way round here. When I am going out to the terrace und smell an aroid I am happy and I search for the flowering plant. My wife can't stand it and she asks me to look for the dead animal to remove it.

[Peppa]

That is funny, Stefan! Sometimes we can follow the odor and find pretty things!

[Peppa]

I have to correct the name that I posted previously. I said that my plant was Typhonium roxburghii, but it seems to actually be Typhonium blumei.

Long story short, I received them as T. divaricatum and when I checked the plant list at the Kew site, T. divaricatum was listed as a synonym of roxburghii. So I was assuming these were roxburghii. But when I was talking to one of my friends about this plant, I started to wonder if the name was correct. Apparently one of the differences between roxburghii and blumei is that T. blumei's appendix grows upward and mine does that. T. roxburghii's appendix grows down.