Caveat emptor

Buying Amorphophallus and similar plants on eBay can be a slightly risky business, I often see people getting conned into bidding on a single seed with a phenomenal starting price, sometimes even when other seed of the same species is available for much less! This guide sets out to arm you with a little extra knowledge of the genus.

The following Amorphophallus species can probably be purchased with a certain amount of confidence on eBay:

• konjac
• bulbifer
• paeoniifolius

konjac and bulbifer are probably the two most commonly grown species in the UK, paeoniifolius is less commonly grown but often imported. Because of this the tubers don't generally command a high price, unless unusually large, and are quite regularly available between autumn and the beginning of summer.

Watch out for claims of "Flowering Size" tubers, some species flower when small but Konjac, for instance, will likely have a hefty postage cost for a genuine flowering size tuber as they're often in excess of 5 inches across at this stage.

When buying other species do be a little more cautious, if the listing has a picture of the tuber in question you may be able to look up the species at http://www.aroid.org/genera/amorphophallus/amlist.html , just incase the tuber differs considerably from the one shown on the IAS site.

Amorphophallus Seeds

Growing Amorphophallus from seed, if you have the patience, is an excellent way to discover less well known species. Unfortunately Amorphophallus seeds lack an endosperm layer and the seed coats are rather thin, these two factors cause problems when trying to store the seed by conventional means, unless kept moist and/or refrigerated, Amorphophallus seed can easily desiccate and once dry cannot be successfully rehydrated.

The image below, unfortunately scaled down by ebay, shows seeds of A. kiusianus side by side, the first 3 have been kept carefully and are just beginning to sprout, the other batch have been at room temperature in a grease-proof paper bag. Unfortunately a lot of seed sellers on ebay are probably unaware of the storage requirements for amorphophallus seed and may inadvertently sell seeds which have long since ceased to be viable.




Recommended sellers for amorphophallus

• Kaizwt1 - Nice Amorphophallus titanum seeds at very reasonable prices
• Arum192 & Cleme192 - not sure if it's the same seller, both appear to have a good track record, i've had good tubers from both Arum192 and Cleme192  in the past.
• Wurzelrapunzel - Mostly seeds but an occasional Aroid tuber
• Easytropicals  - Sometimes has very large Amorphophallus tubers, always has a good range of interesting and architectural aroids among many other exotics.

Update: gordon.m8 is now known as rare_tropical_plants
I'm going to make a quick mention of gordon.m8, while i wouldn't buy from him personally i'm sure he has a lot of very happy customers but please pay attention when dealing with his listings. Some items may not be quite as rare as the listing suggests and most of the listings are for a very small amount of seed, luckily he buys most of it on ebay and resells it so you may want to check his feedback from sellers to get a better price ;-) Oh, and beware the resurrection plant, why on earth it costs £19.99 to post such a plant is beyond me, don't be fooled by the low buy it now price!

Amorphophallus titanum

Here are some photos of my Amorphophallus titanum seedlings at various stages of development, these are grown from seeds provided by Kaizwt1

A. titanum seeds showing the first signs of germination several months after planting in a small, sealed container of sterilised(to the best of my abilities) coir compost, the light coloured patches at the blunt end of the seeds will eventually rupture to reveal a growth point.

Here's one i prepared earlier, this seed has been left in its container for some time after the initial germination to allow monitoring during the development of the two leaf shoots, i would recommend that a. titanum only be potted up once a healthy well coloured shoot, acompanied by some initial root growth, has been formed.

This seed was being planted in a 15cm pot using a sterilised peat based compost mix, it wasn't awfully successful compared to those grown in coir, peat is too heavy and attractive to pests, coir is extremely clean, almost impossible to overwater but stays consistently moist.

In past plantings i've used coir compost sterilised with boiling water, drained until only very slightly moist, treated as directed with a copper sulphate based fungicide(Cheshunt compound) drained again and mixed with a small amount of perlite. The two seedlings below as well as my A. hewitii,  A. gigas and A. decus-silvae seedlings have all been planted in this manner and with a reasonable level of success.

Seeds should be planted so that the shoots are above soil level,  this section will be finished at a later date, if you have any question or suggestions, please contact me.

When dormancy comes around make sure you don't store the tubers of forest species like A. titanum, gigas, decus-silvae dry like you might konjac, they may survive but there's a real danger of the tubers becomming dessiccated and, though they may look healthy, when replanted this increases the likelihood of rot.