ALOCASIA ‘ARGYREA’
Alocasia longiloba x Alocasia ‘Pucciana’
PARENTAGE: Alocasia longilobax Alocasia ‘Pucciana’
SYNONYMS: Alocasia ‘Argyreia’
HYBRIDIZER: Unknown; the name is attributed to Sander's nursery, and the plant was shown in London since at least 1897
VARIEGATION: N/A
DESCRIPTION: Large lanceolate leaves of deep green interspersed between the silvery white secondary venation; pronounced midrib
Its earliest sighting found in print is the 1896–97 season: Messrs. Wills & Segar of South Kensington staged it among "several new varieties of Alocasia… A. Mrs. Martin Cahuzac, A. argyrea and A. rodriguesiana, all magnificent leaved kinds."
It stayed on the show tables into the Edwardian years — John Russell of Richmond exhibited it in 1903 beside Alocasia 'M. Martin Cahuzac', and plants sold as “Alocasia thibautiana and Alocasia watsoniana”
Burnett called it the only surviving Victorian hybrid carrying the genetics of three species, and the botanists took it seriously enough to key "A. argyraea" at species rank beside watsoniana and lindenii in the 1920 Pflanzenreich monograph; modern lists file that botanical name under Alocasia longiloba.
The Index Londinensis registers a published figure of "argyrea Sander" in Möllers Deutsche Gärtner-Zeitung 26: 137 (1911)
INFLORESCENCE: N/A
HYBRIDS:
Alocasia 'Galahad' (Alocasia 'Argyrea' x Alocasia longiloba) — Burnett's own 1984 backcross onto the seed parent
Alocasia ‘Gibba’(Alocasia ‘Pucciana’ x Alocasia ‘Argyrea’)
Alocasia ‘Subodora’(Alocasia odorax Alocasia ‘Argyrea’)
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