I would be delighted to share what I can about the flowering of your elephant ear. I would need to see that picture before I can be definitive about it. Elephant ear flowering is a sort of a specialty of mine, since I hybridize them and need them to flower so I can do my work.

I'll watch for the picture.

LariAnn Garner
Aroidia Research

Here is a link that might be useful: Aroidia Research

I have alocasias and colocasias bloom all the time, especially in the spring time after fertilizing when I first bring them out of the greenhouse. I usually get orange seeds lateron and when they drop, they sprout and grow.

A third flower is forming on the plant. The first flower is withered, the second is full, and the latest is emerging from the stem on the left.

Hello,

We live in Southern California and we have two 7ft elephant ear plants which bloomed two peace lilly like flowers within this past month.

Could anyone help us identify what species we may have? We do have pictures! =)
Thanks!
Chris & Kirsten

LariAnn,

Don't know if you made it to the IAS show, but I was going to ask if you have any new hybrids in the works for release (especially philodendrons).

I just saw that mine is flowering, too... The stalk was broken so I cut it off and brought it inside.

{{gwi:385842}}

I have no idea what kind of Elephant Ear it is... A friend gave me a small plant ten years ago, I planted it in front of the house, ignored it, and it's been growing like mad ever since.

My same elephant ear flowered the next year, May 2006, as well. We used to bring the entire plant in for the winter, but this year it had too many "babies," and we decided to take out the multiple bulbs and let them winter inside in a dormant state. I, too, have had the orange seeds but they never germinated for me.

Mine's never produced the seeds, or at least not that I've noticed! The plants grow so densely that I sometimes can't see into the middle of them. Do they spready through roots/rhizomes?

Leave the flowers on the elephant ear plant, and the orange seeds will form within the withered flower. One day I walked by and saw a flash of red. The withered flower had transformed. Each seed is about the size of a kernel of corn.

I also have an elephant ear that bloomed a flower and now another flower is emerging on it while the first flower is now dying. Is this normal? I have heard of them flowering but never heard of two flowers on a single plant.

my elephant ears have a yellowish flower on it

This one had two on it but the other one died

my african mask 'poly' started blooming after a couple of years, but it was a pretty large plant to begin with, probably 2-3yrs old when i got it.
so i estimate it is about 8-9 years old. all tubers bloom ev year, last one tuber produced 2 flowers one after the other, when there was only 1 new leaf on the plant (it went dormant the year before), perhaps BECAUSE it went dormant and it was repotted fresh?
i cut off the flowers once they decay, but not before that usually.
but i always thought that seeds would be sterile anyway.
besides, using bulbils is a much faster way of propagation then seeds, so that's what i do.
but i like aroid flowers in any case.
here's a pic of mine last year:

I live in Buffalo NY and noticed 3 white flowers on my elephant ear. I have never seen this before with my plants !

I live in NE Arkansas and I have 2 blooms on my elephant ears also...I have been planting elephant ears for about 30 years...I have never saw this before...does it have to be a specific kind of plant that does this. This particular one was just purchased this past spring.

There are hundreds of different species of "elephant ears", let alone all the cultivars and hybrids. Most will flower given the right conditions. There's also an Elephant Ear Wattle, Acacia dunnii.

"Is this unusual and is there anything anyone can tell me about these plants flowering?"

I may be wrong because I don't remember the original source of my information, but I believe that many aroids can be forced to bloom by spraying them with a solution of gibberellic acid (GA). Indeed, a relatively small elephant ear plant that I sprayed with GA bloomed 6 months later. And, there were no morphological changes, such as stem lengthening between internodes, that are typical of GA application to non-aroids (This implies that it is difficult to overdose.).

If true, would you agree that professional breeders of aroids should know this?

They probably do know it and that's how you can go to the store and pick from many blooming Spathiphyllums.

Except spathiphyllums already grow and flower like weeds without using GA. On my first trip to Hawaii, I thought, "Hawaii has too much spathiphyllum."

You don't see nearly as much dieffenbachia, these days. I vaguely remember blooming a dieffenbachia with GA when I was about 15 years old.

I think that once people caught onto just how dangerous that plant can be, I've seen a serious decrease in their popularity.

"Hey, don't eat your house plants, how about you just try that?" Lol

my Spathiphyllums aren't blooming like crazy though. They look great. I'm wondering what's so special about these two small ones I have, maybe just a lighter green foliage? The one I bought in bloom is definitely a much darker foliage.

I have chewed dieffenbachia leaves just to see what the fuss is about and it wasn't very bad, not nearly as bad as chewing a Habanero pepper. According to Wikipedia, "With both children and pets, contact with dieffenbachia (typically from chewing) can cause a host of unpleasant symptoms, including intense numbing, oral irritation, excessive drooling, and localized swelling.[9] However, these effects are rarely life-threatening."

I think that the relatively high price of dieffenbachia plants provides a better explanation of why it is unpopular. And, it may be high priced because growers are not propagating it from seed, ... not using GA to get seed.

From my understanding, aren't they propagated by tissue culture on a commercial scale? They would take forever to get to size from seed, wouldn't they?

Tissue culture wouldn't take less time than seed and not many growers have the equipment or expertise for tissue culture. Besides, we are also talking about hybridization.

so what does it mean when EE blooms? will I have volunteers all over the place?

Haha, where's the elephant ears???? I see calla lily

It takes a while for the inflorescence to develop. It would have started well before your frost and luckily it wasn't cold enough to damage the process. It looks really nice.

I live in northern victoria, Australia.

I rescued this plant from my daughters house.

I have it on the southern side of the house with exposure to an eastern sunrise.

It flowered then the flower died and this grew. Can I propagate from these? ?

There's seeds inside those berries and they should germinate. Don't let the seeds dry out, most aroid seeds need to remain moist or they lose their viability. You'll also need to keep them warm as they germinate and grow, northern Victoria will get too cold in winter for them. If looked after the original tuber will also grow again in the spring.

My husband planted these a few weeks ago in our back yard - damp and shady area. He did not believe the buds were flowers - looks like I was right!

this is not an Aroid. this looks like a Leopard Plant (Farfugium japonicum).

Aroids have a very characteristic inflorescence consisting of spadix (sort of a spike covered with tiny flowers) that is wrapped in spathe (modified bract).

Why don't my photos appear after I've typed a comment? I've deleted the comments if the photos don't appear.....

3

First time flowering!!! Strickly indoor plant.