- = Drago Cactoid = -

typhonium venosum

 'Indian Giant'
(syn = Sauromatum venosum, Sauromatum guttatum [old names])

Shown is a photo of a large Typhonium venosum 'Indian Giant' from Summer 2004. I named this one "Big Guy," which shows a startling lack of imagination and effort.

The 'Indian Giant' cultivar of this plant is well named. The plants are huge and the tubers grow very large. My largest plant, shown at left, was about 2 feet high.

I think the petiole markings on 'Indian Giant' are beautiful, much more so than on the normal form of Ty. venosum.

The tuber of the pictured plant was about the size of a softball when unpotted (about tennis ball-sized when planted). To the best of my knowledge, it was 4 seasons old in the Fall of 2004. The bottom photo is "Big Guy" and his offsets, some of which were also quite large!

If you click on the photos you'll see larger versions.

Typhonium venosum

 'Indian Giant' for sale

I propagated these plants myself. They are 1+ years old.

Typhonium venosum

 (regular species) for sale

I propagated these plants myself. They are 1+ years old.

Ty. venosum (regular) look very much like 'Indian Giant' except on a smaller scale, and mine have petioles that are very speckled rather than sparsely speckled like 'I.G.'

Typhonium giganteum

(aroid.org's Ty. giganteum page)

I don't have any of my own photos of the inflorescense of Ty. giganteum. Please refer to the International Aroid Society's web page, which contains excellent photos by Wilbert Hetterscheid.

I found Typhonium giganteum very easy to grow, treating them like my Amorph. konjac or bulbifer. PLEASE note that, for me at least, Ty. giganteum break dormancy very late! You will pull your hair out waiting for them to come up, but they will come up! For me it was into August, but once they start they grow fast and you'll be amazed that such a small tuber can produce such large leaves.

This is a very nice plant that stays a friendly size for those of you who are tight on space. My plants reached a maximum height of under 1 foot.

Typhonium giganteum

 for sale

I propagated these plants myself here in my Connecticut greenhouse. They're one year old, having grown on their own roots. Not offsets!

Typhonium trilobatum

(aroid.org's Ty. trilobatum page)

I don't have any of my own photos of the inflorescense of Ty. trilobatum. Please refer to the International Aroid Society's web page, which contains excellent photos by Wilbert Hetterscheid and Martin Neitz.

I imported some tubers from India last year and kept them for myself to see how they did. I grew quite fond of the plant. It had large foliage as Typhoniums go and generally quite a few three-lobed leaves. My favorite attribute, though, was definitely the inflorescence! To me these guys were like miniature Dracunculus vulgaris, and for such a small inflorescence they packed quite a punch.

Here's the story: I had a few Amorphophallus tubers rot this year so my nose got very sensitive to the smell of rotting tuber - I wanted to unpot and try to save any tuber that started to rot since invariably it was one I only had one or two of and had paid good money to have in my private collection!

One evening I went into the greenhouse and smelled rot; I immediately ran over to a tuber I was already worried about. It was fine and everyone around him seemed fine, too. The greenhouse circulating fan makes it hard to tell which direction a smell is coming from, so I raised my sniffer and started hunting for the source of that suspicious odor!

After a brief hunt I found the culprit - one of the Typhonium trilobatums was blooming! One small inflorescence could be smelled everywhere in my 22' x 52' greenhouse! It wasn't overpowering nor horrifically unpleasant (sort of on the sweet side of stinky), but there was no mistaking its presence! Most of my plants seemed to produce more than one inflorescence over the course of the season.

I found Typhonium trilobatum very easy to grow, treating them like my Amorph. konjac or bulbifer.

This is a very nice plant that stays a friendly size for those of you who are tight on space. My plants reached a maximum height of under 1 foot.

Typhonium trilobatum

 for sale

I propagated these plants myself here in my Connecticut greenhouse. They're one year old, having grown on their own roots. Not offsets!