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According to Marie Neal (1948), Anthurium andreanum was introduced into the Hawaiian Islands in 1889 by Samuel Mills Damon [the minister of finance for the Republic of Hawaii (Bown, 2000)]. These plants were imported from London and had shell pink spathes. Since plants in the wild have spathes that are scarlet orange, this would suggest that some hybridization and selection had already taken place. The plants were grown on Damon's estate on Oahu. They were vegetatively propagated and distributed to other growers (Kamemoto, 1981).
The sexual propagation of anthuria was not understood until ca. 1940. Once this form of propagation was added to the grower's knowledge, the number of plants and the amount of variation seen increased greatly. The inflorescences were introduced to the floral shops of Hawaii in the 1940's. The cut flower industry started in backyards where the plants were grown under tangerine trees, orange trees, and tree ferns. Some of the early cultivars include 'Ozaki' (1936), 'Kozohara' (1946), and 'Nitta' (1946). These and many other early cultivars were reds and oranges (ibid.).
Birdsey (1951) proposed that the cultivated anthurium be referred to as Anthurium cultorum. The reason being that the cultivated anthurium bears little resemblence to the wild species. The differences between the cultivated plants and those found in the wild populations are the result of hybridization (in particular, interspecific hybridization). This proposal has merit, but the name is not often used. |
