Helensville, about 54 kilometres north of Auckland
Verbatim locality:
Helensville, about 54 kilometres north of Auckland
Verbatim collector:
Laurie Meadows
Standardised collector:
L. Meadows
Verbatim date:
21 Sep 2006
Start date:
2006-09-21
Land District:
North Auckland Land District
Country:
New Zealand
Altitudes:
from 80m
Notes:
It is a remnant of a largely abandoned private collection of rare edible plants. Note that the fruit is immature it is normally an even dull yellow at maturity. There is no pollenizing plant nearby, so the fruit will contain relatively few mature seeds. Properly pollinated fruit have more seeds and are larger. Several much smaller fruit regularly set and mature, but invariably have only a few aborted seeds. The cauline leaves are very large, but are only present in the juvenile growth stage.The material is a second generation seedling of a Cyphomandra sibundoyensis accession imported for study in the early 1980's, by Hort+Research Ltd from taxonomist L. Bohs in USA under the name Cyphomandra sp. 'Bohs & Juajibioy 2222 (#83-32)'. Bohs collected the fruit/seed/plant specimen on the 18th of august 1983 in Colombia, at Comiseria del Putumayo, in the Sibundoy Valley, 2 kms east of Sibundoy, at 2200 metres. At Bohs request I was forwarded seed by the Plant Introduction Officer at DSIR under MAF import regime in force at the time. As far as I know, all plants in New Zealand are from this one accession from Bohs.