Aroids

I went to a talk about Aroids this week. Do you know what an Aroid is? They are monocotyledonous plants from the family Araceae. Monocotyledon is just a super fancy term for plants that have one leaf when they germinate. You can pull that one out at your next dinner party! ;)

A lot of aroids come from tropical regions and they are very popular house plants. Monstera, Anthuriums, Philodendrons and Alocasias are all aroids you might recognise.

Right before Covid hit I had my heart set on an Anthurium Crystallinum - the shimmer and veins on these leaves are amazing - but I was a bit slow and all of a sudden the price was $400 for a couple of seeds (!) Two years on the price is dropping and I finally caved. It sits front and centre in my little indoor collection and I mist it every day (to be honest it would probably be fine outside here, but hey, I’m a bit precious).

My prized *Anthurium* (it’s actually a *magnificum x* not a *crystallinum*, but I still love it)

Happily living outside and largely uncared for though, are my cocoyams. I just ripped up a huge one (1.5m tall!) and am now happily chowing through the edible tubers (similar to Taro or even the white sweet potatoes).

And most incredibly (as I learnt at my talk..) aroids produce heat when they flower which helps lure in pollinators. You can read more about it here, but (spoiler alert), the best bit is, the skunk cabbage does it in the snow! It gets warm enough to melt the snow around it, exposing the bloom ready to procreate. Amazing!

New Rose

Winter flowers