Pop quiz: answers and key

Well, I hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas and all that. I did get some writing done, so a little of the pressure is off. I suspect I'm going to have to take short vacations like that every so often, especially as we go into spring and work supposedly gets more intense. But we'll see how it goes.

Sarah S wins the pop quiz, by virtue of being the only person to make any guesses, so congratulations, Sarah. You nailed at least seven of them. Your $50,000 check should be arriving in the mail within a week.¹

These are the leaves I know are in the picture:

PAINFULLY EASY:
Ficus lyrata (fiddle-leaf fig)
Syngonium podophyllum (arrowhead vine)

EASY:
Epipremnum aureum 'Marble Queen' (pothos)
Ficus benjamina
Begonia spp. (flowers)
Pelargonium x hortorum (geranium) (flowers; would also accept "Pelargonium spp.")
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (leaves)
Plectranthus verticillatus (Swedish ivy)
Bougainvillea spp. (bracts)
Saxifraga stolonifera (strawberry begonia)
Bryophyllum daigremontianum (mother of thousands)

MODERATE DIFFICULTY:
Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo palm)
Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia) (leaves and bracts)
Cyclamen persicum
Alternanthera dentata (Joseph's coat)
Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant)
Spathiphyllum spp. (peace lily)

DIFFICULT:
Ludisia discolor (jewel orchid) (upper left)
Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant) (upper right)
Peperomia argyreia (watermelon peperomia) (upper right)
Ficus elastica (rubber plant) (lower right)

NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE:
Dracaena marginata (Madagascar dragon tree) (lower left, mostly covered and wadded up)

(clicking on this picture will bring up a much larger version, with annotations written over the various sections of plant debris)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

-

¹ (Poetic license, as I'm sure you guessed already. There's no check, it wouldn't be for $50K if there were one, and I probably wouldn't get it together to have it arrive within the week if one existed. Other than that, the sentence is accurate.)