Group of Alocasia on 7-29-18, #487-9.
Araceae Juss.
a-RAY-see-ee
OR
a-RAY-see-eye
The plant family Araceae was named and described as such by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in Genera Plantarum in 1789. The family is commonly referred to as the Arum Family and is the family of aroids.
Plants of the World Online by Kew still lists 140 genera in this family as of 8-1-2 when I last updated this page.
The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri maintains the largest collection of Araceae in the world. There are many awesome experts specializing in this family and the Exotic Rainforest is an amazing site to visit. It is a privately-owned botanical garden in Northwest Arkansas specializing in members of the Araceae family. The website hasn’t been updated since January 2011, but it said their collection included 119 genera and nearly 3,700 species.
Araceae is one of my favorite plant families. I really like growing HUGE exotic plants with big leaves. We have had our ups and downs and being back in Missouri in a small home has limited what I can grow… It is much different than living at the mansion in Mississippi with five sunrooms. I want to try more but my space with the right conditions is somewhat limited, plus overwintering them would be a different problem… Here, the Colocasia rhizomes must be lifted in the fall and overwintered in the basement. I also move most of the Alocasia to the basement over the winter, the entire pot, where they normally don’t go completely dormant. I keep a few of the smaller plants upstairs as well as the Alocasia gageana.
For further information on this family of plants, please click on the links below. They take you directly to the page for the family. Plants of the World Online, in my opinion, is the most reliable database and makes updates on a regular basis. It’s all a work in progress just like we all are.
PLANTS OF THE WORLD ONLINE
WIKIPEDIA
EXOTIC RAINFOREST
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN EXTENSION
Amorphophallus sp. at 32″ tall on 7-15-21, #812-1.
Anthurium andraeanum on 6-13-12, #100-6.
Arisaema dracontium (Green Dragon) on 5-3-20, #695-7.
Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-In-The-Pulpit) on 5-3-20, #695-12.
Arum italicum on 5-1-09, #12-42.
Caladium bicolor ‘Strawberry Fields’ on 7-19-17, #357-15.
Colocasia esculenta in the west bed at the mansion in Mississippi on 8-1-11, #68-28.
I have grown 9 different Colocasia from 2009 through 2021. Actually, most of them were when I lived in Mississippi. The only two I have grown in Missouri have been Colocasia esculenta and Colocasia Coffee Cups’. There was the Colocasia gigantea ‘Thailand Giant’ whose name changed back to Leucocasia gigantea ‘Thailand Giant’.
Dieffenbachia seguine ‘Camille’ on 9-24-12, #119-19.
Dracunculus vulgaris (Dragon Arum) on 4-15-12, #86-30.
Although I purchased this plant from an Ebay seller who listed it as Dracunculus vulgaris, it could have been Sauromatum venosum. Dracunculus vulgaris, I think, normally have white markings on their leaves. This plant never had white markings on its leaves… I screwed up and left its rhizomes behind in the ground when I moved from Mississippi back to Missouri in February 2013… GEEZ! I bought Sauromatum venosum rhizomes in 2021…
I have more to add to this page… ASAP…
