Info on Aristolochia durior x elegans

11 years ago

This is similar to a recent post I made on the Butterfly forum, with essentially the same questions.

I recently bought a 1 gallon plant at UC Botanical Garden (Berkeley) labeled Aristolochia durior x elegans:

Here's the tag that came with it:

I was intrigued as A. durior is typically given as a zone 4 plant. A. elegans is usually given as zone 8 or zone 9, although in California it's usually sold as hardy to 25 F.

I was also surprised at the size given for the flowers. A. elegans is usually given as 3, sometimes as large as 4 inches. A. durior is smaller.

Interestingly, there are irregular white spots on the leaves. I was under the impression these are characteristic of A. gigantea and not its close relative A. elegans. If someone knows differently, please correct me.

So I'm looking for any information I can find on this hybrid. I've already spoken with people at UCBG. Some specific questions:

What is the history of this hybrid (I remember seeing it on the UCBG website at least a couple years ago)?

Has anyone tested the hardiness? Presumably the person who made the hybrid had this in mind.

Could A. gigantea instead of A. elegans be one of the parents (based on flower size and leaf coloration)?

Of course any other comments or questions about the hybrid would also be welcome. I don't have any photos of the flowers. There are a couple online, I give a link below. I've already started trying to root couple cuttings and expect to start more in the Spring.

Here is a link that might be useful: A site with pictures of this plant's flowers

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Comments (7)

Gerris2 (Joseph Delaware Zone 7a)
11 years ago
That's a pretty dramatic flower! Unfortunately, I do not have the information to answer your questions.
TimChapman
11 years ago
A couple notes as I saw the original post you made in a different forum.

This hybrid is sold as durior x elegans but both names are synonyms so in reality it should be macrophylla x littoralis. I don't think A gigantea is a possible parent of this hybrid.

I'd be curious to learn the history of this one and if the name is in the traditional listing of seed parent first. I haven't found a huge amount of chromosome number listings for this genus but they certainly aren't all the same. Two of the major groups seem to have the same base but one group is diploid, the other tetraploid. Still, so much breeding potential here!

I'd like to cross some of the showier Tropicals with the very cold hardy types. This might require tetraploid conversion?? I was recently told about some hybrid work with the cold hardy A westlandii (the Asian version of A gigantea) but haven't seen photos nor do I know what other species were used.

I too tried the yahoo group but the moderators don't seem to be even adding people to it and no recent posts etc. We started a Facebook group a few weeks ago though http://www.facebook.com/groups/aristolochia for anybody interested.

Tim Chapman
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Hi Sherry and Sandy, Thanks for your comments. I hesitated somewhat posting on this forum as I had read that A. gigantea (and I believe A. elegans) are toxic to some butterfly larvae. However, I assumed that there would be people with considerable experience growing Aristolochias on this forum. The nature of the toxicity is not clear to me, nor is it clear whether a hybrid would share that problem. Is it even known whether the "toxicity" is due to a poisonous substance or substances, or whether the plants are "poisonous" simply because they lack some molecule(s) necessary for the caterpillars' survival? Regardless, I assumed that on a forum like this there would be a number of people who started growing Aristolochias for the butterflies, but then fell in love with the genus for the plants themselves. I know that is true of many who grow Passifloras. I'm not familiar with the debates over the naming of A. durior and A. macrophylla. For some reason I had thought they were synonyms. I have a friend who used to be involved in vine propagation at UCBG and I'm hoping to get his thoughts as to whether the parent could have been A. gigantea. I'm sure there are cases where the flowers of a hybrid are larger than either parent, but (particularly in the absence of polyploidy) I would expect they are rare. An 8 inch flower (assuming the description is correct) is a pretty dramatic increase in size. The white flecks on the leaves are also highly suspicious. Again, my impression is that those are diagnostic of A. gigantea, and never found in A. durior/macrophylla or A. elegans. The white "flecks" are odd enough that many people think their A. gigantea is diseased the first time they notice them. My interest is in the ornamental aspect of the plant, as well as its adaptability. I've grown other Aristolochias--A. gigantea, trilobata/macroura, elegans, and fimbriata. I've offered both unrooted and rooted cuttings of A. gigantea for postage in the past, and at the moment I have rooted cuttings of A. trilobata/macroura that I will need to find homes for. What intrigues me about this particular hybrid is the possibility that it could resemble one of the tropical species in terms of large and dramatic flowers, yet have unusual hardiness. The hardiness is not an issue for me, but it would be for people living in most of the rest of the country. I would guess that there would be people interested in growing such a hybrid outside if it were possible in their climate. Passiflora incarnata is an example of a plant whose hybrids differ in their hardiness. Passiflora 'Incense' (P. incarnata x cincinnata) is one that is reasonably hardy for many people (typically given as zone 7, I think, sometimes even zone 6). Others are much less hardy. In that case the origin of the P. incarnata parent may be one factor, as strains from more Northern regions are not nearly as hardy as those from the Deep South. The bottom line is that for either P. incarnata hybrids or for Aristolochia durior x elegans, the hardiness of the hybrid can't be easily predicted. It needs to be tested. But yes, for those whose sole focus is attracting butterflies, the issue of toxicity is probably more important than hardiness. By the way, I think the Yahoo Aristolochia group has essentially died, with almost no posts in the last year or two.
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Dzitmoidonc
11 years ago
I have both A. elegans and durior/macrophylla. Tim, did you mean to say that durior = macrophylla, not that durior = elegans?

I find durior and elegans to be very different. Macrophylla/durior is indeed hardy. I have seen it growing in Fort Kent, ME at the northern extreme of the state, on the Zone 3/4 boundry. Elegans, on the other hand, grows in the greenhouse here and freezes to the ground if temps drop below freezing in the g-house. Flowers are obviously different. The seed pods are similar in that they are an angled bolus. Elegans pods are about 3X long as they are wide, durior about 2X.

I agree w/Tim, I don't think gigantea is involved in the cross.

This is elegans in bloom here.
TimChapman
11 years ago
The hybrid name should really macrophylla x littoralis. Durior is a synonym of macrophylla and elegans is a synonym of littoralis.

I would really like to know more about this cross, if it was man made and definitely had macrophylla as one parent. If it was the seed parent then that would be obvious, but if littoralis (elegans) was the seed parent then I'd have doubts that macrophylla was the pollen parent.

There is debate on the classification of Aristolochia. One group has suggested a split into two genera. The two parents of this cross belong to the two different suggested genera. More importantly the chromosome numbers don't match (2n=32 for macrophylla, 2n=14 for littoralis). Stranger things have happened though. But knowing more about the cross' creation would help.
Dzitmoidonc
11 years ago
I suspect it has to be a man made cross. Elegans blooms in the fall and durior is done here by late June. Of course, I've had a few July stragglers (durior), so maybe somewhere elegans can grow outside it has some July early blooms?

P.S. I volunteer at a plant place that has gigantea, and it blooms even later, doesn't even start until Sept., but again, this is indoors.
aristolo
10 years ago
I see no characteristics of durior in the hybrid. The hybrid of durior and elegans would most likely have a smaller flower than elegans does, not a larger one. The cross is more likely to be one between gigantea and elegans than between elegans and durior. If durior were involved in the cross, I would expect the following characteristics:

smaller flower than elegans

a larger and less waxy appearance to the leaf (definitely no white spots the presence of which suggests gigantea, not durior)

semideciduous ( nobody has talked about this)

suitability as a hostplant to the pipevine swallowtail whereas pure elegans will kill the larvae

I crossed elegans and durior about 10 years ago. Made the mistake of planting the one seed that sprouted in December outside. An unusually cold night (freezing) in Orange County California killed it. I have been trying to cross these two ever since without success. Elegans can be made to bloom earlier to coincide with the bloom of durior by planting against a hot south exposure masonry wall.

Still, I would be very interested in obtaining this hybrid to check it out. I may drive up to Berkeley and buy one. When I see the plant in front of me and can test other characteristics ( i.e. smell of broken leaf ) it will be easier to discern whether this is really a cross with durior or not.
mark4321_gw
Original Author
10 years ago
Hi aristolo,

Perhaps I should have followed up on this.

This hybrid has been since discussed on the Aristolochia forum on Facebook, as well as privately:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/aristolochia

For actual posts, this might work:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/aristolochia/search/?query=durior%20x%20elegans

The thinking and conclusions are essentially identical to yours. I'll post a new photo since my plant bloomed a couple times as well.

It seems highly likely that it is some hybrid of A. gigantea and A. elegans. There already seem to be a number of such hybrids out there for sale, typically assigned to one species or another. For example, the plant sold by Suncrest (wholesale) as A. elegans has flowers that are too large for that species, white spots on the leaves, etc. (I have pictures).

More interesting is the suggestion (discussed in detail on the Facebook group) that there are really two species: the huge (14 inch flowers) Aristolochia gigantea brasiliensis and the small Aristolochia elegans. The hybrids between them appear to include the plants typically referred to as A. gigantea. Therefore, if the UCBG plant is in fact A. gigantea x A. elegans (or the reverse) that could make it (A. gigantea brasiliensis x A. elegans) x A. elegans. In other words, it would be 3/4 A. elegans and 1/4 A. gigantea brasiliensis.

If you are still interested in trying the UCBG plant I can give you something at some point. I have a couple rooted, but was planning on giving one or two of them to people. I also started new cuttings about a week ago.

UCBG is still selling bigger plants, with the name unchanged.

Here is a link that might be useful: Facebook posts (repeated from above)

Info on Aristolochia durior x elegans

Comments (7)

Gerris2 (Joseph Delaware Zone 7a)

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Info on Aristolochia durior x elegans

Comments (7)

Gerris2 (Joseph Delaware Zone 7a)

TimChapman

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Dzitmoidonc

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