[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XLI

I'm fairly close to being done with the Fittonia profile; I finally made some serious progress on it over the last couple days. So my blogging energy is going toward finishing that, for now. I'm hoping to have it up Thursday. [UPDATE: Thursday didn't happen, but the profile was finished.] Therefore, transmitted light photos.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Glycine max.

Liquidambar styraciflua, autumn.

Philodendron mexicanum. I realize this may not look all that interesting, but P. mexicanum leaves are green on top and reddish underneath (unusual for Philodendrons, or at least the commonly-grown ones), so the muddy color here is for a cool reason. I've tried to get a yearbook picture of the whole plant, but it's very hard to find an angle that shows both the green top and the red underside.

Chlorophytum x 'Fire Flash.' This pleases me, just because I've taken a lot of photos of 'Fire Flash' that were out of focus, or where the color was off in some hard-to-fix way. This isn't gorgeous or anything, but it's accurate, and I'll settle for accurate.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Splish Splash.' I'm undecided about whether the dead spots on the left of the photo make this image more interesting, or less interesting.

Quercus sp.

Hydrangea macrophylla Endless Summer 'Twist-n-Shout.' I'm uncertain how much of that is the actual variety name; it was all on the tag.

Begonia NOID.

Quercus sp., autumn.

Caladium 'Fire Chief.'

Pretty pictures: Iris cvv.

Not a lot to be said here; these are mostly your ordinary Irises, from around town and a couple from the ex-job. I've seen some really impressive beds of Iris this year; I don't know if they're having an unusually good year or if I'm just noticing them more.

There wasn't any ID on this except for something like "Red German Iris."

Early dwarf type. I think. It was at least early. And it was short. Short means dwarf, right?

Iris 'Batik.' I like this one a lot.
We actually had an Iris at the house bud this year. I got some rhizomes last year from a reader who may or may not wish to identify him/rself, and they survived being covered by enormous Salvia elegans bushes (an accident; I didn't think the Salvia would get that big) and came back this spring, which was already better news than I was expecting, but then to have a bud on top of that was even more exciting.


Then one morning I went out to check its progress and the decapitated bud was lying on the ground next to the plant. I have no idea what happened; the end of the stem looked more chewed than cut, snapped, or twisted off, but I don't know what would want to eat enough of an Iris to take the one developing bud off but not want to finish the stem once it'd been started. (Rabbits? Squirrels?) Anyway. I brought it inside, recut the stem, and stuck it in a glass of water, hoping it might open anyway, but it didn't. And that's all the Iris news I get for this year, apparently, because the other plants didn't even try to bud.

Understandably, though. I mean, after seeing what happened to the plant who did try to bloom, I'd be keeping my buds to myself too.

Berry-go-Round #40 is up.

Actually, it's been up for a while already, at Sitka Nature, but I'm only just now getting around to it because I had a good blogging week last week and actually managed to write some posts in advance for once. So I'm telling you now.

It's possible that some of you are asking What's a Berry-go-Round?

Well. Berry-go-Round is a blog carnival¹ with a focus on botany. It's not so much about horticulture (though they're not anti-horticulture) as about science. People submit blog posts that they've written, or that they've encountered elsewhere on the web,² and then the list gets posted on the host blog.

Some of you may now be asking why you should care. The reason is that PATSP will be hosting Berry-go-Round #41,³ in about a month, so if you have botany-related blog posts -- and "botany-related" appears to be understood kind of loosely⁴ -- you should read this and then submit a post. My hope is that I'll get some hort folks and some botany folks who wouldn't have otherwise run into one another reading one another's blogs, and then . . . um, some sort of wonderful blog-and-plant-involving things will happen, possibly ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity for all humanity.⁵

-

¹ "Blog carnival" is defined by Wikipedia as:

A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.

² I think people can submit stuff they haven't written, anyway. I mean, I don't know why they wouldn't be able to.
³ It goes without saying -- though I'll say it anyway -- that BGR41 will be the BEST BGR EVER!!!1!!1!!!
⁴ I don't know that there's even a strict definition for "horticultural" as opposed to "botanical." My only submission to BGR so far was the Phalaenopsis profile, which went on at some length about polyploidy, but someone also included one of the transmitted light photo sets, so it's not like your post has to be all "The seed stalk or funiculus of each seed is modified into a hook shaped jaculator or retinaculum that functions in flinging out the seeds during dehiscence" in order to qualify.
⁵ And possibly it won't. But we'll never know unless we try.

Question for the Hive Mind: Thistle?

When I took these pictures, I thought I knew what this was, but after spending some time on-line trying to verify, I lost confidence. So I'm asking y'all. My guess is bull thistle, Cirsium vulgare, though this plant doesn't seem to have long terminal spines like C. vulgare does.

Bonus Sheba content!
It probably doesn't matter; these pictures were taken 13 May, and the plant's probably been cut down by now, but I thought it had a sort of admirably dense and pointy form, the sort of thing people would try to grow on purpose if it were more difficult to grow on purpose. (If I'm right about the ID -- hey, it attracts butterflies! It provides food for songbirds! Pest-resistant! Hardy! Brightly-colored flowers! What more do you want?) It at least looks like something I'd try to grow indoors, if I thought that were possible. Luckily for us all, I don't think it's possible.


Anyway. If anyone can confirm, or suggest an alternate ID, I'd appreciate it.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I almost got a good photo of Nina this week, but when I opened the top of the cage to get a better, less hard-water-stained angle, she skittered away into the underbrush. The terrarium underbrush is presently about 180% Pellionia pulchra. It's probably about time to cut those back again. So today's picture is of Sheba, once more:


Sheba's had a fairly normal week, though we did take her to Southeast Iowa on Sunday, to see my sister-in-law and a number of her friends. There were many people around, most of whom she hadn't met before, and some of them were even small children and teenagers, and Sheba was fine throughout (to the point where multiple people commented on how well-behaved she was).

There were only two moments where she wasn't doing well: in one case, a small child got up directly in her face and was also touching her head (Sheba growled, showed her teeth, and swung her head away, but didn't snap at the kid), and in the other, a second dog was involved, and the second dog started growling at Sheba first. That was odd, because they'd met before, and had gotten along okay then. Granted, that was close to a year ago, and they didn't get close enough to one another to smell each other; there was just a lot of barking and whining and straining at the leash and stuff. But otherwise, she spent a lot of time in the car, met lots of strangers (including one previously-unmet dog), and was mostly fine.

Animal: Polistes sp.

Tragically, the paper wasp pictured here did not survive our encounter, because I knocked it down, flung it to the ground, and stepped on it.

It should have known better than to try to start building a nest on our garage door, was my thinking.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum St. Swithin

*Sigh*

My orchid problems continue -- the most recent development is the discovery that the Sophrolaeliocattleya I bought last winter had an impressively developed scale infestation (under a leaf, in a spot that was only visible from one angle -- and apparently I never looked from that angle in the last few months), so it's gone in the trash. I mean, I was looking for an excuse to get rid of it anyway, so.

The others have (after inspection for scale; I didn't find any) been relocated to the living room, where they will receive better air circulation, though it'll be drier air, and better light, and a more consistent watering schedule. And we'll see how that goes. Those of you who were hoping for a PATSP orchid giveaway should take heart; I'm still kind of hoping for one too. I just can't give them away while I think I could try something else to rehabilitate them, so we're making a small effort at rehabilitation. If/when it fails, then the giveaway will happen.

Meanwhile, we have photos from the orchid show in March, and I have to say, this is one of the most incredible orchids I have ever seen.


I do kinda wish that they'd used a different background for their display -- it sort of echoes the coloration of the plant, admittedly, which might be a cool effect, but it's a close enough match that it also sort of blurs the line between plant and background.

Animals: The barn swallows

The previously-mentioned barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) have laid eggs now. I had to use a mirror (the gold stuff at the top), as Errant suggested Saturday, to get the picture.


A web cam, which some of you suggested, was never going to happen -- we don't have one already, and the money's not there to buy one. As Pat said, checking on the nest too often may cause the parents to abandon it and start elsewhere, so I will try to restrain myself, but I don't think I'm capable of leaving them alone entirely. One hopes they'll forgive me.

Random plant event: Chirita 'Deco' flower buds

I mentioned this a while ago, but didn't have a picture then.

So far, I'm liking this plant, though at least some of my fondness is relief that it didn't die; a lot of the plants that arrived at the same time have, and it's been depressing.

The flowers, when they open, are supposed to be somewhere on the purple to white continuum, according to Google. I'll let you know.

List: Houseplants Which Have Yellow Flowers

With most of these I don't have pictures of whole plants in bloom, and in some cases, cultivars with yellow flowers are rare and hard to find, so the inclusion of a plant in the list doesn't mean that it's usually found with yellow flowers, only that yellow is a color which is known to be possible. For the pictured plants, I have gone with plants which usually or always bloom yellow, for whatever that might be worth to you.

Aloe vera. (A couple flower pictures available at the link.)

Aphelandra squarrosa.

Astrophytum myriostigma.

Columnea orientandina. (The cuttings I mentioned recently are still alive so far, by the way.)

Faucaria spp. (I know at least some have yellow flowers; I doubt all of them do but didn't bother to look it up.)

Gynura aurantiaca. (Photo of flowers here.) You wouldn't actually want the plant to flower -- the blooms smell unpleasant -- but it still meets the criterion to be included in the list, so it's in the list.

Hamatocactus setispinus.

Hatiora salicornioides. Pictures of single flowers here, though there are much more impressive multi-flower photos elsewhere on-line. My plant wasn't, let's say, fully committed to blooming. Though considering the circumstances, I'm pretty tickled that it bloomed at all.

Justicia brandegeana.

Leuchtenbergia principis. Photos of a flower here.
For the recommends and anti-recommends, I'm sort of at a loss, because I haven't grown several of these (Aphelandra, Faucaria, Hamatocactus, Justicia) and have only begun to grow (Columnea) or have had mixed luck growing (Astrophytum, Aloe, Gynura) the others. But if I must . . .

I'm very happy with my Leuchtenbergias, and they seem happy with me too, so I'd recommend them to other people. Likewise, I've rarely had problems with Hatiora salicornioides, and think it's a very nice plant. For the third recommend, I'll go with Astrophytum myriostigma, because although we've had problems, I think the problems were almost entirely my fault -- it was top-heavy, and I kept knocking it out of the pot, and then I also was watering it too much in the winter, while the plant was cold, so I was basically begging for it to rot out. Which it did.

Speaking of rot -- my anti-recommend would be Faucaria. I haven't had much direct experience with them, but my understanding is that they're inclined to rot out at the drop of a . . . drop of water, much like Lithops cvv. I don't think it's that they're particularly difficult plants; it's more that beginners tend to show their enthusiasm by overcaring, so plants that just want to be left alone aren't going to be a good match. Plus, I suspect Faucarias also want an unreasonable amount of light, though again, I don't have much direct experience.

Not pictured:

• Abutilon cvv. (a few cvv.)
• a few Adenium cvv. are yellow, though reds and pinks are a lot more common (reader suggestion)
  
• Allamanda cathartica
• the occasional very rare Anthurium cvv.
• Astrophytum ornatum
• some Begonia cvv.
• Bougainvillea cvv.
• some Brugmansia/Datura cvv. (reader suggestion)
  
• some orchids in the Cattleya alliance (C., Blc., Lc., Slc., Pot., etc.)
• some Chirita cvv. (reader suggestion)
  
• a few Clivia cvv.
• a few Columnea cvv.
• some Dendrobium cvv. (tend to be greenish-yellow, though, at least the ones I remember)
• Echinocactus grusonii
• some Episcia cvv.
  
• a few Epiphyllum cvv.
• some Episcia cvv.
  
• Euphorbia grandicornis, and other succulent Euphorbias like E. obesa and E. flanaganii, usually have small yellow or yellow-green flowers; the true flowers of most/all Euphorbia species are yellow, though in a lot of cases (E. pulcherrima, E. milii) the bracts overwhelm the true flowers
  
• some Euphorbia milii cvv., bracts included, though those I've seen have been more of a pastel yellow
  
• some or all Fenestraria spp.
  
• Fittonia cvv. true flowers are yellow-white
  
• some Guzmania cvv. have yellow bracts; I'm not sure what color the true flowers usually are, but yellow is a possibility there as well
  
• some Heliconia cvv. have yellow bracts and/or true flowers
  
• some Hibiscus rosa-sinensis cvv.
• some Kalanchoe blossfeldiana cvv.
• some Lithops spp. (I think they're all either yellow or white)
  
• Ludisia discolor (partly; most of the flower is white)
• some Mammillaria spp.
• I've seen a yellow Miltoniopsis orchid picture on-line, though never in person
  
• a few Nematanthus cvv.?
• some Oncidium alliance orchids (Colm., Alcra., Alxra., Bak., Colm., Gdlra., etc.)
  
• some Opuntia spp.
• a few Oxalis spp. and cvv., particularly O. hedysariodes and cultivars derived from it. You may also be growing O. stricta without meaning to, as it's a common nursery container weed. (reader suggestion)
  
• some Pachypodium spp. (though not necessarily the ones in the profile) (reader suggestion)
  
• Passiflora citrina; maybe other Passifloras?
  
• some Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis cvv.
• some Plumeria cvv., though it's debatable whether Plumeria is really a houseplant or not
  
• a very few Saintpaulia cvv.
• some Schlumbergera cvv.
• a few Streptocarpus cvv.; the first one to come up in a Google image search is S. 'Seren' (reader suggestion)
  
• some Thunbergia alata cvv.
• some Tropaeolum majus cvv.
• Uncarina spp. are usually yellow, though there are some pink ones out there as well (reader suggestion)
  
• some Vriesea cvv. have yellow bracts and/or yellow true flowers
  
• the true flowers of Vriesea splendens are yellow, though the longer-lived, more dramatic bracts are red
  
• some Zantedeschia cvv.
• some Zingiber spp. (reader suggestion)
  

I'm sure I've forgotten all kinds of things, so if you can think of others, say something in the comments.