ALOCASIA MACRORRHIZOS ‘NEW GUINEA GOLD’
DESCRIPTION: Alocasia macrorrhizos ‘New Guinea Gold’ is a variant of Alocasia macrorrhizos characterized by its distinctive gold petioles, golden splashes of color on the leaves and inflorescences.
Michael Pascall, an Australian aroid collector related the discovery of this cultivar, and its Papuan roots which give it its name:
“Trevor Ford, a local orchid grower told me how he brought the plant to Australia over 20 years ago. He had planned a collecting trip to New Guinea with some very well known orchid ladies, Andre' Miller and Marj Purnell. When applying for an import permit the Reverend Ron Collins advised him to put Araceae as well as the Orchids that he intended to collect, as he knew that they might find some interesting Alocasia or Amorphophallus spp.
In November of 1979, they stayed at the Kavieng Hotel, in Kavieng on the island of New Ireland.
On the grounds of the hotel was a clump of this amazing Alocasia. Trevor found out that one of the 'boys' who worked there had brought the plant from his village, only a mile or so away. The owner of the hotel was happy to let him take a plant from the large clump in the garden.
They did not thrive in the quarantine house of the Reverend Ron Collins which is on the tablelands at Atherton (nearly 1000m asl) but when Greg Oldano (hybridizer of Alocasia ‘Moresby’) took a plant back down to the coast and put it into cultivation in his garden at Moresby (Australia) it really took off!”
SYNONYMS: Alocasia ‘Jungle Gold’
