Black magic Elephant Ears
This my second summer for my Ears and I love them! Last week I began to notice that some of the stalks were twisting and making the leaves lower to the ground, this was on the main plant. I have replanted some of the offspring in different places in my garden and I noticed that one of those has a twisted stalk. they didn't do that last summer. I live in zone 7 and realized that I don't have to bring them in for the winter. I tried to find information about this and found that it could be a "pathogen" so I'm really confused, do you have any information or help with this?
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I'm trying to find out what is a pathogen? my understanding would be like a parasite maybe? in my reading there was a reference to perhaps an animal could be urinating on them and the pathogen could be from that. I just thought it was a strange occurrence especially since this was their second season. I had not fertilized until three days ago and even them it wasn't very much. La Lennoxa no they aren't planted too deep I just took those photos to give a visual of what I was trying to explain. These are a few pictures of them last season.
9 years agoA pathogen is generally some microscopic organism that causes an infection. Such as bacteria, fungus, virus, etc. Things that are large enough to be visible to the naked eye are generally just referred to as pests. To me it looks like the growth (the leaf stem) is too weak to support the weight of the leaf blade and it all ends up on the ground. Any urine, animal or human, is sterile, unless the animal/human has a kidney infection. But what would infect a kidney wouldn't affect plant tissue anyway. But urine does have a concentration of minerals (fertiliser) and Nitrogen is one of the main ones.
Some of mine, growing in water.
LaWanda Teal thanked tropicbreezent- 9 years ago
- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
Do Black Magic EEs put out vertical runners? My largest one is 2 yrs old and has horizontal runner types that radiate from the base. Most have reached 3-4 ft before they went back into the ground on wet ditch substrate. All but 1 is horizontal...if it is a runner. The runners generally grow in a downhill direction, and are:
1) Subterranean, short, and immediately send out small leaves/pups and don't get roots until the fall.
2) Subterranean and send out small leaves and roots at the same time along the segment joints and the runners keep lengthening. There are more root instances than leaves/pups on each runner. These usu only have 1 place where leaves appear.
3) Subterranean and surfaces and keeps lengthening. Root buds show but never grow into the ground on the visible areas. No leaves or pups. They do this all growing season. Most of them seem like this until they find an ideal spot to send out roots.
4) Begin above ground and are slightly thicker than others. After the first 1 ft these can then share the same habits of #2 or #3 above.
5) On a potted Black Magic EE where there is less water/moisture, the runner began underground, grew up and out of the pot, and put out a pup with roots where it touched the ground. Now as the pup grows, the part of the runner that connects the pup is thinning, getting lighter in color, and seems to be drying out.
The below photo shows what appears to be a vertical runner. If that is what it is called. I just noticed it. I do wonder if it is an inflorescence but no flag leaf was sent out before it...but a day later I noticed one appearing in the top center of the plant. This vertical runner has the characteristics of the many horizontal runners I see but has shorter segments, and 3-4x as wide. It is 7/8" wide where it branches off the main plant base between 2 petioles:
Shown with cardboard behind it for contrast:
This pic also shows the horizontal runners/rhizomes that headed downhill and some I trained to follow the same path by using small stakes and twist ties. They come from the same plant:
- 9 years ago
The vertical runner above from Sept 3 eventually flopped over, touched the ground, and sent out roots and leaves as a new plant.
What is this in the middle of this older petiole? I cut the leaf off before bringing it indoors and all looked normal. Then when the petiole shriveled a little a cut it shorter, and noticed what appeared to be a runner inside the petiole. Is that a runner or pre-emergent flag leaf or a pre-emergent inflorescence?
This is a normal looking petiole that was cut. It has an inflorescence on the inside of it. It looks like Styrofoam but it's damp to the touch:
The plant has 2 sections that grow leaves. It is like a double plant. The side that has that supposed inline runner has 5 inflorescences.
- 8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
Update: 4 days later the petiole withered enough that I was able to peel it away from the supposed runner and cut it off. The newly exposed parts of the supposed runner had sets of roots on it. So I have concluded this is a runner. From what I see here, this plant 'self-parasited' itself with its own runner. Maybe there is a more accurate name for this. There was no unusual characteristic or damage of the leaf whose petiole it was in.
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