New cultivars of Epipremnum aureum and Syngonium spp.

Today, Saturday, is my last day at work -- it looks like I'm not going to be able to come back to work any additional days in June, which is more or less okay by me (I was pretty miserable from the heat on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.), though I had hoped to be able to do something to assist through the rest of the really really busy period. The reasons why I won't be able to are technical, and have to do with my income from work being theoretically able to mess things up with the funding for the house, according to the husband, which I figure I'll be all snarling and sleep-deprived after a week of moving / cleaning / heat / contractors / generalized disruption of everything, so probably not in the best mental state to be dealing with customers anyway, especially since customers at this time of year are frequently out of their damn minds. (I've had people get visibly angry with me because we didn't have any non-pink Lisianthus to sell them. Seriously. The tone was such that it seemed like the customer in question would rather we not have had any Lisianthus at all, than for us to have it but have it be the loathed pink, that the pink was just crossing a motherfucking line. I exaggerate, but not by much. It was weird.)

Anyway.

So I won't be posting for a while. I expect to start again on 1 June, but it could start up again sooner, or later. I really have no idea. E-mail may or may not be similarly shut down. Much is unknown about this post-work world.

Meanwhile, I leave you with a cool little pothos (Epipremnum aureum) that WCW brought in on Wednesday, having bought it at a competitor's store. Neither of us had seen one before, and she wasn't even sure it was a pothos, but it was shaped the same as pothos in every particular, down to the grooved petioles, so I was fairly certain that's what it was. (I have since managed to identify it as Epipremnum aureum 'N' Joy,' first by searching davesgarden.com, then by running across an availability list from one of our suppliers, who listed a pothos by that name.¹) It almost looks like the same kind of variegation I talk about in the second half of the Sansevieria trifasciata profile, with the three layers of cells being expressed differently at the leaf center and leaf margin. No word yet on whether that is, in fact, what's going on with 'N'Joy.'

Not-great photo of WCW's whole plant.

Close-up of a more or less typical leaf.
Anyway. WCW brought this plant in on Wednesday. On Thursday, I walked to the competitor (the husband had the car at the house²) and bought one of my own, along with a Syngonium NOID:



I haven't come up with a positive ID yet on the Syngonium. It resembles S. wendlandii, which is also a dark green, and has a similar velvety texture, though S. wendlandii has a broader white center, in the pictures of it I've found. Though that may be because mine was grown in lower light than the on-line specimens. Syngonium 'Green Velvet' and 'Southern Star' are also contenders, but both are only mentioned on one site, which suggests that they're maybe not official cultivar names, and might be synonyms for S. wendlandii. Whatever it is, I have no idea what it was doing in Iowa, and also it looks difficult, like every other velvety-textured aroid I've encountered to date save one.³ Perhaps it would be best to just give it to Nina immediately. For her to poop on.⁴

Then I found out yesterday that actually, WCW had intended me to keep the Epipremnum 'N' Joy,' so now I have two.

Anyway. See y'all in a week. Plus or minus.

-

¹ Another confirmation of the ID led me to this page, with pictures from the 2009 Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition, so now I want: Anthurium 'Tweed' (though, one, I bet it doesn't do well indoors, and two, I really don't want to "fool the cops," if by "fool the cops" you mean "make them think that the harmless plant I'm growing is actually marijuana, which will get me arrested and lead to a long, unpleasant and expensive process of having to prove that it's not an illegal plant at all, at the end of which I will be traumatized and without legal recourse"), Cordyline fruticosa 'Antares,' Euphorbia punicea, Ficus dammaropsis, Ludovia integrifolia, Neoregelia 'Ardie,' Dracaena deremensis 'Hawaiian Sunshine,' D. d. 'Spearmint,' D. d. 'Malaika,' and D. d. 'White Surprise.' Your covetousness may vary.
² It occurred to me while writing the above fairly mundane sentence that, at one point not even all that long ago, I had gotten used to the idea that I would never have a husband, car, or house, and that it's quietly mind-blowing that I do. Er, sorta I do. (Technically, the car and house aren't mine, and I don't have a driver's license so I can't exactly use the car independently.^a)

^a Long story. It's not related to a DUI or anything -- I've never had one, so I've never had one taken away. I could get one, in theory, but that's a whole different long story.

³ Philodendron gloriosum is hanging in there, but is not an easy indoor plant. Ditto for Anthurium crystallinum 'Mehani,' which was doing fine until just recently, when I let it get too dry for too long. Alocasia 'Frydek' was breathtakingly gorgeous, but I didn't even want to try that one: it was damning enough that it was an Alocasia. The only velvety aroid I've been successful with so far has been Philodendron hederaceum micans.
⁴ Yes, it's a Triumph the Comic Insult Dog reference. Though also that's what she does. Mostly she poops on her rock, occasionally she poops on the Podocarpus. Probably there's other pooping I'm not aware of. In fairness, it's not like she has an exercise wheel or a plastic chew toy or anything: she's kind of hard up for entertainment. Spends a fair amount of time literally climbing the walls. Sometimes she hangs upside down from the wire mesh cover. Let's don't judge.