Merican Rock Garden Societu
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Bulletin of the merican Rock Garden Societu VOL. 41 WINTER 1983 NO. 1 THE BULLETIN Editor ... Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Conn. 06031 Assistant Editor . Harry Dewey, 4605 Brandon Lane, Beltsville, Md. 20705 Contributing Editors . Roy Davidson, Anita Kistler, H. Lincoln Foster, Owen Pearce, H.N. Porter Layout Designer . Buffy Parker Advertising Manager . .. Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, Pa. 19380 CONTENTS VOL. 41 NO. 1 WINTER 1983 Arisaemas — H. Lincoln Foster 1 Sex and Size in Arisaema — John J. Wurdack 9 Pioneer in a Dry Walden 11 Rock Gardening on a City Lot — Bozidar Berginc 18 The Worthy Sandworts — Geoffrey Charlesworth 21 1982 Annual Meeting - Colorado — Trevor Cole 24 Six Years Past the Interim Event — Roy Davidson 26 Amo, Amas, Amat Rock Gardening — Charles Gordon Post 30 Some Fall Blooming Bulbs — T. Paul Maslin 32 Trillium Cousins — Edith Dusek .. 36 In Search of Darling Tony — Lola Gardner and Veva Stansell 38 But Are Those Plants in the Garden? — James L. Jones 41 Of Cabbages and Kings 42 Cover Picture — Arisaema sikokianum — Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Connecticut Published quarterly by the AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCFETY, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey. You are invited to join. Annual dues (Bulletin included) are: Ordinary Membership, $9.00; Family Membership (two per family), $10.00; Overseas Membership, $8.00 each to be submitted in U.S. funds or International Postal Money Order; Patron's Membership, $25; Life Membership, $250. Membership inquiries and dues should be sent to Norman Singer, Secretary, Norfolk Rd., South Sandis- field, Mass. 01255. The office of publication is located at Norfolk Rd., S. Sandisfield, Mass. 01255. Address editorial matters pertaining to the Bulletin to the Editor, Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Conn. 06031. Address advertising matters to Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, Pa. 19380. Second class postage paid in S. Sandisfield, Mass. and additional offices. Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society (ISSN 0003-0864). Printed by the Deer Spring Press, Norfolk, CT VOL. 41 WINTER 1983 NO. 1 Bulletin of the merican Arisaemas H. Lincoln Foster Falls Village Connecticut Drawings by Laura Louise Foster The fossil record of herbaceous plants corolla of showy petals. Somehow they is meagre, primarily because their soft look more primitive, but that is only be• structures are not readily preserved. cause we are most accustomed to think Therefore we cannot say much about of flowers in the familiar pattern of the the sequence of development in the ex• petunia, rose or lily. traordinary variation of plant form and Plants in the Arum Family, the flowering design among the angios- Araceae, have their own kind of architec• perms, the modern plants with seeds in tural elegance, some of them such as an enclosed ovary. So far as we know calla and lysichitum are even considered comparatively rapid diversity was the beautiful. Though most of the arisaemas, story when land plants and insects prolif• the jack-in-the pulpit plants, are rather erated together during the Cretaceous. demurely plain, others are strikingly We cannot say, for instance, whether handsome. In fact some in my garden, plants like arisaemas and others in the when in flower, attract almost universal Arum Family, with their sex organs ar• attention and admiration. This is espe• ranged on a spadix enclosed in a leafy cially true of A. sikokianum and A. can- spathe are more primitive than plants didissimum, but even the less flam• with stamens and pistil exposed within a boyant members of the genus attract 1 notice by intricacies of pattern and struc• One name for our American arisaemas is ture. Indian Turnip. It is unclear whether the I suspect that the general feeling about Indians actually ate the tubers or them is that they are rather quaint, in the whether they were given this pejorative sense that they are skillfully wrought. name by the white settlers because they Some are startling by virtue of intricate looked so edible but weren't and were patterns of color on the leaf, spathe, or therefore assigned to a benighted stem; others are curiously decorated by people. It is reported that though they long appendages on the spadix, on the are not made edible even by boiling in a tip of the spathe, and occasionally on the succession of waters, they may be ren• tips of the leaflets. dered harmless by some months of dry• The purpose of these long frequently ing. threadlike appendages is obscure. We Since our interest is more horticultural are taught that all such features serve an than culinary, we turn from the root to adaptive role and as they have evolved the flower. The flower, as we have indi• help the plant survive. These filaments cated, is composed of a central fleshy may carry scents undetected by the column, the spadix, enclosed within a human nostril but alluring to insects use• spathe, the cylindric leafy tube that flares ful in pollination. Since most are as• in various ways to make a hood over or a sociated with species from areas of mon• flag above the spadix. soon rains these threads may act as Surrounding the spadix in discreet water spouts. I suspect, however, that zones develop the sex organs. Around they are merely expressions of a natural the lower portion are female ovaries with exuberance I seem to detect in many receptive stigmas, and in the ring above plants. They appear endlessly to diver• are the male stamens. This would appear sify and experiment until the exuberant to be an ideal arrangement for ready pol• modification becomes lethal in its ex• lination and assured seed development. tremity. But, as with other plants, there are However this may be, the genus strategies to assure a mixing of genetic Arisaema is a vast one. There are about material. Most arisaema species tend to 150 species, chiefly in tropical and temp• abort either the male or female organs erate Eastern Asia with a few in Africa on a particular plant to enhance cross and North America. Depending on the pollination. Hence most are designated taxonomist consulted there are up to as dioeceous, that is they have function• forty species in Japan alone. With their ing male and female parts on separate widespread distribution and variation of plants. form, they all share some common The arisaemas play interesting games generic characteristics. They all arise with this arrangement, however. Studies from a depressed-globose tuber, the made both in America and Japan have tuber tending to be more onion shaped demonstrated that at one stage in its life and pointed in youth, but shortening and history an individual tuber will produce a splaying at the hips with age. A few even flower that carries viable male organs become so spread out that they become only, at another stage carries functional rhizomatous. This underground storage female organs only, but may, indeed, organ is primarily starchy and might sometimes be hermaphroditic with both serve as a source for human food except sexes functional. So much for women's- for the heavy lacing of poisonous al- lib and male chauvinism! keloids and spicules of calcium oxalate. When, either with insect help from plant to plant or from rare self pollina• sikokianum in December under lights in tion, the ovaries are fertilized, there is de• the basement. They sprouted quickly veloped near the base of the spadix a and grew well until late April when the cone-shaped cluster of berry-like fruits small plants all withered. On inspection I containing one to five seeds. As the found that each had developed a small spathe withers away and these fruits onion-like tuber, quite viable looking. I swell they slowly change from a shining put these in moist peat in a sealed plastic green to a gleaming red. Where the fruit bag. This went into the butter-saver clusters are carried aloft on tall stems compartment in the door of the re• they frequently grow too heavy for the frigerator for two months. The tubers stalk and are swayed earthward even be• were then planted in humusy soil in a fore they fully ripen. Those species that small plastic flat, about one inch below carry their flowers near the ground on the surface and about one inch apart. stout stems present in autumn a marvel• They all soon sent up new vigorous ous display of a fiery red cone of ber• plants, completing by fall two years ries — an exciting ornament in the land• growth in one. They bloomed after scape of the dying year. another full year in the garden. Under These appetizing looking fruits are as normal conditions it takes from four to heavily laden with poisons and mouth six years from seed to flowering. tingling spicules as are the tubers. They I have since tried this procedure with a cling for a long time, avoided by birds couple of Chinese species without the and rodents, until various soil and air• same results, probably because I tried to borne agents of decomposition break hasten the process at one stage or down the outer coat. Thus the seed will another. frequently lie moist and cool for spring The tubers of some Arisaema species germination right where the fruit cone have not been easy for me to grow in has fallen and we find a tight cluster of pots. When potted up in the fall and car• single leaved seedlings in the spring ried over in the alpine house tubers of A. fighting for dominance. At other times sikokianum and A. candidissimum did late foraging ants will carry off the par• not appear in the spring.