Albert's Greenhouse

Once upon a time, it was very rare to see a Tacca in a nursery. Just the other day, I saw one for sale at the San Francisco farmers market. Then I saw one in the window of a mattress store in Palo Alto. This is what tissue culture will do for you, I guess.

For those not familiar with Taccas, they are a low growing plant with the weirdest infloresence you or I have ever seen - lots of little tendrils coming out of this thing. There's a black bat flower: Tacca chantrieri, a couple of whiter bat flowers : Tacca nivea and Tacca integrifolia, and some weird things like Tacca lentopetaloides, which is basically green, but in a bad-hair-day kind of way.

Taccas are from Southeast Asia and Africa, and looking at the leaves, one could be forgiven for believing that that they are related in some way to the Aroids or perhaps the Gingers. But no, it turns out that the family is actually most closely related to true yams, or the Dioscoriceae.

Tacca seems to like boggy, moderate light conditions, with lots of humidity and some heat. Tacca integrifolia, at least, does very well sitting continuously in a tray of water ... as long as it gets sufficient heat. They seem like plants of the marshy understory, and aren't too demanding except for the issue with heat and water.

Tacca seeds are an infamous source of great frustration for many tropical plant enthusiasts, and it's great to see that somebody's finally put a few plants into tissue culture. The seeds, for those who don't already know from painful experience, were apparently designed to survive bad times, because once they dry out, they will just sit around for years in the germination bed, doing absolutely nothing. Technically still alive, they absolutely refuse to germinate. The older they get, the longer they take. And I never got a germination rate above about 5% out of commercially sourced seeds. Just buy one or two of the tissue cultured plants that are out there, and skip the seeds. That's my advice.

If you want more advice, here's a good site: sleepy_oaks was growing and selling them before growing and selling them was fashionable.