Traveling down Rohdea Road

In 2012 we received a small shipment of plants labeled Rohdea japonica, from the former Chen Yi Nursery in China. Although we grew many cultivated forms of the species from Japan, we were curious what it looked like in the wilds of China, since we’d never been able to study it there. We also ordered these out of curiosity, since Chen Yi Nursery was notorious for sending incorrectly identified plants. To paraphrase the Forest Gump line, “an order from Chen Yi is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” As we opened the box, it was obvious that these were in fact rohdeas, but certainly not Rohdea japonica. Once they were potted, we realized that there were actually two different species sent as Rohdea japonica. After growing them for a few years, it was obvious that one was Rohdea chinensis, a species which we had studied a few years earlier in Taiwan.

The second plant, however didn’t match any known species of Rohdea, as we poured through Tanaka’s monograph on the genus. A monograph is a paper detailing everything that is known about the taxonomy of a particular plant genus. The plant, the flowers, and the fruit of our second plant, made it obvious that this was a new species. New species, along with those thought to be extinct, had already shown up several times in previous Chen Yi shipments, including one that we had a hand in recognizing as new, Arisaema muratae.

Our rohdea clumps are now twelve years old in the garden. Here is a clump of our largest clone of the new rohdea, that we named Rohdea ‘Supersize’. It has matured at a whopping 2′ tall x 5′ wide. We hope to find someone to help officially publish this as Rohdea sp. nov. elegantissima. The abbreviation “sp. nov”, means “new species”, and is used in the name, until the plant is officially published and accepted. The obstacle to publication is that we don’t know the original collection location.

All clones of the new species that we have grown, possess the same wide central chartreuse band, although some are more vivid than others. Below the new species is a photo of the Rohdea chinensis, that arrived in the same shipment, also labeled Rohdea japonica. The foliage, growth habit, flower time, and fruit are completely different from the new species. We assume that since they were most likely collected together, they probably grow near each other in the wild. The new Rohdea sp. nov. elegantissima showed no winter damage at single digits F, while the foliage of R. chinensis was burned badly at the same temperature. We look forward to one day being able to share this.