Macdaddy, I wondered if you were able to send the seed. So far my mailbox has been deprived of such a packet!

thank you.

I got mine today! Yeah!

So, MacDaddy. Did you plant yours directly in the ground in your raised bed? Or, did you do the veggie crisper first and then plant them in the ground? I'm afraid I'm getting confused on the entire procedure.

Susan

MacDaddy, many thanks, for both the seeds and the information included with them. The envelope arrived on Saturday and I should be planting them later this week.

MacDaddy, Thanks very much for the seeds, along with the information sheet, which arrived today in Honolulu. I was happily surprised there were so many seeds, which had also been cleaned. I had prepared a couple of pots with very well draining planting medium. But there were so many seeds that I had to make up a few more pots. I made some different mixtures to increase my chances of success. The seeds are planted, and the pots are in bright shade. I hope they grow in this climate. IÂll try to remember to keep the forum updated as time goes by. Thanks again!

The seed arrived her in New Jersey. Thank you so much!!!

I am going to sow half outside and 1/2 in a pot under lights right now.
Hawaii50 and others, get a copy of "The Genus Arisaema- A monograph for botanists and nature lovers" by Guy and Liliane Gusman. It is interesting to see all of the Arisaema, and there is a section on germination and cultivation.

I think I'll do some in the fridge, too, like MacDaddy suggested.

Susan

I highly recommend The Genus Arisaema by the Gusmans, excellent reading and for developing your "wish list" after reading about which Arisaema will grow in your climate. It can be ordered at Borders, Barnes & Nobles, Timber Press or Amazon.com ...
:-)KA
Thanks you Macdaddy for your generosity and I make it a daily goal to help/be nice to someone each day!

your seeds were in the mailbox when i got home last night.

i have to admit i cried a little.

seriously.

winter-sowed a few, some are incubating in the unheated basement, a few are proudly displayed in their little pots inside a zippered plastic sweater bag on the coffee table.

i was babbling on at work today about the Coolest Thing that happened ...
this Complete Stranger sent me the Greatest Seeds Ever ...

and my co-workers were nodding & smiling little frozen smiles & i could tell they were touched & happy to see me so excited but they just couldn't figure out what i was so excited about, especially when i got to the part about it taking four years to see a flower.

... but the Flowers will be So Amazing and Worth It!

anyway, thank you from the bottom of my muddy little heart.
this is just great.

i already did two good deeds today in your honor.
more to come. i figure one for each seed?

MacDaddy - you're the best! You've put smiles on so many faces and seeds in so many hands. This is truly the meaning of "sharing the wealth"!

Thanks, guy!

Susan

Gosh, Marie, I won't ruin the moment by telling you what I am really like. I will say, "Your welcome" and I hope your response wasn't due to a hard life.

dude, i'm from iowa.
we're just naturally goobery.

MacDaddy - I sowed my sikokianum today, so please put the happy wishes on me! No bad karma, thank you very much. They are really easy to separate from the berries.

I did it two ways. Some in the fridge like you suggested, and some in containers outside.

Whoo-hoo! Thanks so much!

Susan

Susan,

Good luck! I'm sure your Karma will be fine. I have yet to get results on my germination test this year. I forgot to plant some to test for germination till way after I started to give them away.

Let me know who has good germination and what you did to do it. Last year I had a lot of replys saying the seeds were very good.

Hello Macdaddy, as said they are in Italy too, thanks again, I started at once their germination ( 1/3 of seeds) with Deno-McClement method with wet papertowel and Ziplock and I keep the bag in a pocket during the day, 1/3 are in the fridge in another ziplock bag and the remaining have been sown in a large pot with soft wood-soil mixed with medium sand 30% and pumice 20%, just moist and kept outside near the house where the temperature is slighltly mild, i'll let you know the germination rate here with theese different ways.
I hope to be able to grow them till flowering and make many presents in next years....cross fingers and wait.
Thanks again,
Giorgio

I'm going to post this under my other thread on triphyllum, but guess what! I have triphyllum coming up in my winter sown container outside! I planted it on January 6th, and I have a lone seedling sprouting! So, it took about 3 weeks to germinate. We'll see if I get any more.

Susan

People are taking about planting their seeds and IÂm still hoping that my will arrive one day:)

Anna, I have recieved no returned envelopes. It should have been there by now, unless customs got it. Any special rules there? -Brian

Thanks for reply, Brian, no special rules as far as I know and nothing from custom, which is good. At list seeds will get cold treatment by the time I'll get them:)
Anna

Some of the seeds I received from MacDaddy have germinated. I'll give a headcount later.

I took a peek at my seed yesterday, and they have little tiny extended tips on the seed - does that mean they are in the process of germinating? The extension appears to be on the top of the seed, and is brown. Looks kind of like a tiny thorn.

Susan

Susan, Nope. The root is white. That tiny brown thorn has a hair attached to it that seems to tangle with the substrate, anchoring the seed.

So far 27 of about 35 seeds have germinated, and there may be more. Thank you, MacDaddy! This is the largest seedling. There's just a small chance, but I just hope one of them has mutated enough so it can grow in a tropical climate.

{{gwi:396233}}

The seeds I received from MacDaddy were planted on Jan. 23. I donÂt remember exactly how many seeds I received, but it was about 40. Of those, 41 have now sprouted, so it was a pretty good germination rate. The seeds were planted in different media mixtures, as follows:
(1) 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite.
(2) 1 part Nitrohumus (compost) and 1 part Big R Redwood Soil Conditioner (tiny chips).
(3) 1 part Nitrohumus, 1 part peat moss, 1 part Big R Redwood Soil Conditioner, 1 part lava cinders, and 1 part perlite.
The seeds were watered every other day. They were planted in gallon pots to ensure that they wouldnÂt dry out if I unintentionally skipped a watering (but I donÂt think I did). The seeds were planted in 5 pots, which were placed outdoors in bright shade. The temperature has been in the low 80s (F.) during the day and the mid 60s at night. The seedlings all seem to be healthy. I hope they donÂt get victimized by fungus or mildew or something else thatÂs in the air around here. I notice that some of the plants have leaves with serrated edges, and other plants have leaves with smooth edges. I wonder if that difference will continue. I applied SuperThrive to the seedlings in one pot a couple of days ago, hoping that it would encourage root growth. There is no difference (yet) between those plants and the others. So far, so good. Please excuse my ignorance, but does this plant go dormant during the winter?

Note: The variegation does not set in until they are three to four years old, or older. I have also had bulbs that sent up a variegated leaf one year send up a non-variegated one the next. So if you are culling for variegation be aware of this.

I am doing a germination test with 100 seeds and will let you know the results.

I have been too busy to send out another batch of seeds.

ladies & gentlemen ... we have germination.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:396231}}

Congrats, Marie!

Hey, MacDaddy! You know, I do everything backwards, upside down, easy things are hard for me and hard things are easy, and to top it off, I'm left handed.

Well, you know those A. sikokianum seeds you sent me last year and that I just got planted in January? Well, they've germinated outside. I winter sowed them outdoors, and they are coming up - yippers!

I haven't checked my others yet, that are hibernating in papertowels in the fridge, and in papertowels in the warm cabinet over the fridge. But will do that and get back with you. Just wanted you to know that the seed was STILL viable. I had done nothing to it, like refrigerate it nor was any otherwise special treatment given it. I just thought you might be interested to know that. I am extremely excited!

Now, what I want to know is should I just leave them in the container, and take the lid off (harden off)? I am assuming they will go dormant, right? At which time, should I just leave them alone, pot them up, plant them out, or what?

Susan

Susan,

Well, I was busy last year and didn't prepare a bed for them till June. Half the bed got sun in the morning and that half had about 1% germination rate. Makes me wonder if it was too hot and that the seeds are dormant and will germinate this spring. I'll cross my fingers.

I will cross my fingers for you, Macdaddy. I was really surprised, and am definitely getting better than a 1% germination rate.

I went to the IAS site and was reading about growing arisaema from seed, and the article I read stated that dry seed was as good as fresh - go figure. So, I'm really excited. Just wondering what I should do with my little plants now - leave them in the containers and keep them well watered thru the heat of the summer, or after the foliage dies back, stop watering? It seems to me I read that they like to be dry (except for very few species of arisaema, excluding sikokianum), when dormant. Or, should I go ahead and plant them in the ground?

Susan

Hi Macdaddy
Just got home and what a nice surprise-SEEDS, I got them!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!
:-)

Anne, You're welcome. Sorry for the delay. I was busy.

Hi Macdaddy hope all is going well in New York. Here in New Zealand it is the start of Autumn and in Wainui the temperature ranges from 4 to 30c with one or two days as low as -2.
I sowed some sikokianum seed in pots outside and some on paper towels in a container inside (not in the fridge) and have had a 98% germination rate.
Seed I have given to other collectors has also had an extremely high germination rate and we all thank you very much for your generous gift.
Best wishes for the future.

Wainui (Bob Reid)

A total of 48 seeds germinated. I think that's 100%, or something close to it. I thinned them out to 4 seedlings per gallon pot. Here they are, gathered together, for a group portrait.

{{gwi:396236}}

And here are the plants in just one pot. The round thing standing up in the center of the pot is a quarter, just as a reference.

{{gwi:396238}}

Carol23,

I just found your envelope in the bottom of my vegi crisper. I guess things got jumbled and it fell to the bottom. I will send it out tomorrow morning. Sorry for the delay.

-Brian

Those seeds that were at the bottom of the crisper in the letter were rotten. I had not wrapped them in wax paper but instead paper and totally enclosed in packing tape with no ventelation. I think the tape might have had some chemical that killed them or too much moisture. In any case if you recieved seed from me and had it stored as I had wrapped it please fix the problem. This may even happen with the wax paper envelopes if I taped too much and sealed them closed. The were moldy and squished easily.

The other seeds I had stored in a ziplock bag with a dry paper towel are fine.

Take the seeds out an rinse with cold water in a screen strainer or bowl. Dry them lightly on a paper towel. Put them on another dry towel and you should see no wet spots. Now put that in a zip lock bag and put it back in the fridge.

I noticed a few days ago that when the sun was shining at just the right angle the leaves were very shiny.

{{gwi:396240}}

But I also noticed this.

{{gwi:396242}}

Can anyone tell me what that is? And, more importantly, how to cure it?

Macdaddy, is Arisaema sikokianum also known as "Gaudy Jack", by any chance? I'm trying to find the proper name for a plant I saw.

I've been hunting for "Gaudy Jack" for over a year now and if I just missed a benevolent seed frenzy, I might have become straight-up Iowan and cry profusely. *lol*

When I first saw ol' GJ in the arts garden here in Indianapolis, it took all I had not to just start digging that big ol' sucker up and cramming him in my pocket. It was seriously well past 2.5 FEET tall and had a HUGE white...spadix (?) pulpit (?)...anyway, it looked like someone stuck a golf ball in it.

When I find him, I will marry him. ;D

Obsessed,
Andrea

Just reporting in on germination here, 100% in my APS units. No special treatment, they all germinated as soon as the weather warmed up.

Andrea,

Never heard of the name Gaudy Jack but looked it up and yes that is a common name for this plant.

Sorry, you missed out on the freebee. I have already started my eBay auctions and would feel bad giving out seed free to some people while asking others to pay for them at the same time. I gave them out free here because I get free help and people pointed out some cool plants to me.

I completely understand! :) At least I know what it is now and can find it! Thanks macdaddy!

Got good germination :-))
Thank you Macdaddy

MacDaddy, I just noticed this morning that the A. sikokianum are breaking from their first winter dormancy. I don't have a final count but am so happy to have passed that hurdle. The squirrels dumped the little tubers out onto the driveway so many times during the winter that I was afraid for their survival, but now I think maybe intermittent turbulence should be part of the routine! Again, thanks so much for the seed.

If I recall correctly you only had taken 20 -35 seed or so. So how many did you get to the bulblet stage?

I think I had 22 or 23 seeds and all of them germinated. After all the rescue missions that I conducted over the winter, I'm very happy to report that I've got 20 sprouting now. Two have got two sprouts, if those are from separate tubers that ended up very close together in the pots then the count is 22.

Macdaddy, the final count is 20. My new puppy tipped the pots over (will this never end?) and I was able to count definitively during the repotting. They rode out that dip in my sikokianum roller coaster as well as they have all the others (lucky puppy), and two of them are already showing nice silver markings in the foliage.

Good morning, I am new to this site. Would you happen to have more seed available, I just saw this plant yesterday and would love the opportunity to try to grow it.

Karin

I have also recently discovered this wonderful plant and would love to try growing from seed. Would anyone have extra seeds to spare for a novice?

I've been buying a lot of Arisaema seeds on ebay. Most of them germinate just fine. I've got everything I want now, so I won't be bidding against you. Check out the attached link.

I am very disappointed by the Aroid Exchanges forum. No responses whatsoever.

Here is a link that might be useful: a. sikok. seed

By any chance you might have more of these? I have ONE beautiful one but must have another so I can 'have' babies also. Thanks plantbug

Hi

I think you gave me seeds years ago. They have bloomed for the first time this year and they were gorgeous.. I only took 12 seeds and I have 8 plants growing still... Only 3 bloomed this year. After about three weeks of blooming, suddenly the white bulbous flower and spathe turned into mush and is gone? Is that normal? Should I be looking for seed like a typical Arisaema tryphyllum? Boy, I hope they are okay they were gorgeous...

Thank you again for your generosity. I will pay it forward..

Oh...I would love to have some Arisaema sikokianum seeds if you have them. I saw this exotic plant and searching all over the local nursery but haven't found it. I am willing to pay or trade it with other unique plants. Please let me know. Thank you!