Abstract
Many herbaceous plants native to Malesian perhumid tropical forests are difficult to cultivate long term in traditional (peat, coir and bark) compost mixes. As a result, many appear to be underrepresented in ex situ living plant collections. Under the leaf-litter, lowland rainforest soils are typically surprisingly low in organic content (< 2%) and many of the smaller forest-floor-dwelling plants exist mainly on steep slopes of bare mineral soils with limited leaf-litter cover. By adopting purely inorganic compost media and placing pots in trays of water the wet mineral soils of their natural habitats are replicated and the plants can be cultivated long term with notable ease. The use of wholly inorganic media reduces the incidence of root rot to such an extent that it is suggested that they should be used more often for the cultivation of slow-growing taxa from other regions which are often considered to be ‘difficult’.
Highlights
In 2013, several plant taxa were collected under licence from forest reserves in Brunei Darussalam, northern Borneo, for growth under controlled conditions in order to fulfil one of the aims of an ongoing research project
The trip was organised because the ground flora of the lowland forests of the Malesian region is not well represented in living collections in botanic gardens
It must be noted that several of the larger and more spectacular understorey plants of the region are relatively common in botanic institutions and are typically grown in organic-rich composts, especially Amorphophallus titanum and several Alocasia spp
Summary
Many herbaceous plants native to Malesian perhumid tropical forests are difficult to cultivate long term in traditional (peat, coir and bark) compost mixes. Under the leaf-litter, lowland rainforest soils are typically surprisingly low in organic content (< 2%) and many of the smaller forest-floor-dwelling plants exist mainly on steep slopes of bare mineral soils with limited leaf-litter cover. By adopting purely inorganic compost media and placing pots in trays of water the wet mineral soils of their natural habitats are replicated and the plants can be cultivated long term with notable ease. The use of wholly inorganic media reduces the incidence of root rot to such an extent that it is suggested that they should be used more often for the cultivation of slow-growing taxa from other regions which are often considered to be ‘difficult’
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