AMORPHOPHALLUS KONJAC 'SHATTERED GLASS'

ORIGIN:

Michael Marcotrigiano; Plant Delights describes it as a 2003 introduction of plant breeder Dr. Michael Marcotrigiano

CULTIVAR DESCRIPTION:

A variegated Amorphophallus konjac whose palm-like green foliage is randomly sectored with white.¹ Plant Delights notes that the variegation is naturally unstable, so some years it is dramatic and some years it is absent.¹ Juniper Level Botanic Garden describes it as an unstable variegated cultivar developed by Michael Marcotrigiano, with foliage emerging solid green in some years, with a little sectoral variegation in others, and fully variegated in 2022.² Seedlings from a cross between two flowering plants gave the cultivar 'Robb's Song'.³

HYBRIDS:

Amorphophallus 'Robb's Song' (seedling from a cross between two flowering plants of this cultivar)

NOTES:

1. Marcotrigiano offered variegated plants of this cultivar on Aroid-L in April 2003.⁴

2. Michael Marcotrigiano, director of the Smith College Botanic Garden, wrote on February 9th, 2004 that his plant of this cultivar was flowering for the first time and that even the spathe was variegated, rosy red and purple.⁵

3. Marcotrigiano, who developed the cultivar, wrote on March 9th, 2004 that it arose as a bud sport on a side shoot and that no sibling ever showed the trait. He was 99.99% sure its variegation is not a virus: the plant gives lethal-white, all-green or variegated corms, which he read as segregation of a genetic mosaic, something a virus would not do, and his attempts to infect other green Amorphophallus with its cell sap did not work. He added that even the spathe shows some variegation.⁶

REFERENCES:

1. Plant Delights Nursery: Amorphophallus konjac 'Shattered Glass'

2. Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Picking up Shattered Glass

3. IAS: Amorphophallus 'Robb's Song'

4. Aroid-L mailing list, Michael Marcotrigiano, April 2003

5. Aroid-L mailing list, Michael Marcotrigiano, February 9th, 2004

6. Aroid-L mailing list, Michael Marcotrigiano, March 9th, 2004

Photos by Plant Delights Nursery

Photos by Juniper Level Botanic Garden