Aristochila arborea LINDEN is a small tree from the rain forests of central America. The thin corky stem branches freely and the entire plant grows probably up to 5-6 m. The leaves are entire and elliptical in shape. They are 25-30 cm long and 10-15 cm wide.
Only a very few specimens of this very attractive plant are in cultivation. The specimen at Bonn has been collected at the Botanic Garden Bogor by one of the authors (ROTH). A few specimens have been cultivated in Bogor since the beginning of this century (CAMMERLOHER 1922), and at least one plant has survived until the present day (see VOGEL 1978). There is nothing known about the origin of these plants. A specimen was already fully mature by the time of CAMMERLOHER. Therefore one can assume that this plant specimen belonged to LINDEN´s collection and probably represents type material.
Cuttings of the two plants at Bonn were sent to the Botanic Gardens Berlin, Frankfurt (Palmengarten), Hamburg and Munich. Aristolochia arborea is also in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, but the origin of this plant is unknown, too (R. KERBY, pers. com.). PFEIFER (1966) reports, that a person called BROADWAY has collected material from cultivated plants in Trinidad. Due to the fast decline of central American rain forests and the fact that only few documented collections of Aristolochia arborea exist, one can assume that this species is extremely threatened.”
Information quoted from florawww.uconn,
