Rumble Among the Jungle: First Round Results

I was going to do this the way I've been, putting the results in before the new polls for the day, but I yammered so much that I figured it would be better to make this its own post.

So here we are, the very last set of results for the first round. *sniffle*

Results for matches 1.61 to 1.64:

Round 1.61 was a little wobbly at first, but after about 12 hours of votes, Hippeastrum cvv. took a slim lead over Vriesea splendens and held on to it. Hippeastrum wins, 55 to 40.
Round 1.62, on the other hand, swung back and forth repeatedly between Agave spp. and Cattleya alliance orchids. Both had impressively dedicated fans, though only the Agave fans threatened violence. (The Cattleya fans only threatened the opposition's plants.) Which may be why in the end, Agave spp. narrowly defeated the Cattleya group, 50 to 46.

Hippeastrum and Agave will compete in match 2.31, on 14 October, for the right to advance to the third round.

In match 1.63, Opuntia spp. basically dropped an anvil on Codiaeum variegatum cvv., which surprised me. (I thought of the match as a referendum on glochids and spider mites, personally, and wound up choosing the glochids / Opuntia on the grounds that glochids are an intermittent problem, but spider mites are continuous. Though I could just as easily have gone the other way, on the grounds that spider mites aren't physically uncomfortable and glochids are. There was really no good way to vote in that match, for me.) The score was 51 to 40 in favor of Opuntia.
Finally, round one ends on a laugh (if you don't like Radermachera sinica), with Calathea spp. absolutely annihilating Radermachera in match 1.64, by a score of 77 to 10. The margin of victory by votes wasn't the highest, but it was the most one-sided by percentage, with Calathea receiving a full 88.5% of the votes cast.

Opuntia and Calathea compete on 14 October as well, in match 2.32.

Now some analysis of round 1:

The most one-sided in terms of the percentage of votes received was, as I just mentioned, round 1.64.

The most even match was 1.42, where Beaucarnea recurvata defeated Sedum morganianum / burrito with a mere 50.45% of the vote.

Match 1.18 (Monstera deliciosa vs. Musa / Ensete spp.) had the largest vote gap; Monstera received a full 69 more votes than Musa / Ensete.

The narrowest margin of victory is a tie; the winners took both match 1.29 (Pachira aquatica vs. Pilosocereus pachycladus) and match 1.42 (Beaucarnea recurvata vs. Sedum morganianum / burrito) by a single vote.

I'd tried to predict the outcome of each match before the voting started, just to see how I'd do; I wound up getting 42 matches right and 22 matches wrong (65.6% correct), which is better than chance, but not nearly as accurate as I thought I would be.

As far as the plant families go,¹ the big losers were the Acanthaceae, which put up four fighters (Hemigraphis exotica, Fittonia albivenis cvv., Aphelandra squarrosa, and Hypoestes phyllostachya cvv.) and lost all four times.

We also lost all competitors from: the Aizoaceae (Lithops), Arecaceae (Chamaedorea, Ravenea, Rhapis), Aspleniaceae (Asplenium), Bignoniaceae (Radermachera), Davalliaceae (Davallia, Nephrolepis), Musaceae (Musa / Ensete), Oleaceae (Jasminum), Piperaceae (Peperomia), Portulacaceae (Portulacaria), Primulaceae (Ardisia, Cyclamen), Rubiaceae (Coffea, Gardenia), Saxifragaceae (Saxifraga), and Vitaceae (Cissus).

I had been sort of worried, going in, that there might just be a large group of people who really liked a specific type of plant (gesneriads, orchids, succulents, cacti, whatever) who would throw the results off by voting as a large bloc, making the results predictable and boring. So far, there's no indication that that's happening, though.

The big winners among the families were the Asparagaceae, which won 13 matches out of its original 16, the Araceae (kept 8/13), and the Bromeliaceae (kept 5/7). (The plant I would most like to see win the overall competition -- which also has a realistic chance of doing so -- is in one of these families.)

The following families lost no members in round one: Amaryllidaceae (Clivia, Hippeastrum), Araucariaceae (Araucaria), Cycadaceae (Cycas), Droseraceae (Dionaea), Leguminosae (Mimosa), Malvaceae (Hibiscus, Pachira), Oxalidaceae (Oxalis), and Strelitziaceae (Strelitzia).

Fourteen other families remain in contention: Apocynaceae, Araliaceae, Begoniaceae, Cactaceae, Commelinaceae, Compositae, Crassulaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Gesneriaceae, Marantaceae, Moraceae, Orchidaceae, Polypodiaceae, Urticaceae. (My two best guesses for which plant will win the competition overall are from this group.)

Here is the list of matches for round 2, some of which are already underway, just in case anybody wants to try to predict the results, or needs extra time to make his/r decision, or whatever:

2.1 Clivia cvv. vs. small Vriesea hybrids
2.2 Cryptanthus cvv. vs. Tradescantia pallida
2.3 Saintpaulia cvv. vs. Echinopsis spp.
2.4 Epipremnum aureum cvv. vs. Crassula ovata / argentea / arborescens cvv.

2.5 Dracaena reflexa cvv. vs. Asparagus spp.
2.6 Aglaonema cvv. vs. Oxalis triangularis cvv.
2.7 Ficus maclellandii vs. Strelitzia nicolai / reginae
2.8 Philodendron hederaceum cvv. vs. Dracaena fragrans cvv.

2.9 Phalaenopsis cvv. vs. Monstera deliciosa
2.10 Sansevieria cylindrica vs. Araucaria heterophylla
2.11 Dracaena marginata cvv. vs. Cereus peruvianus
2.12 Hoya carnosa cvv. vs. Maranta leuconeura cvv.

2.13 Platycerium spp. vs. Gynura aurantiaca
2.14 Aloe vera vs. Schlumbergera cvv.
2.15 Pachira aquatica vs. Cordyline fruticosa cvv.
2.16 Mimosa pudica vs. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis cvv.

2.17 Dionaea muscipula vs. Aeschynanthus cvv.
2.18 Aechmea fasciata vs. Spathiphyllum cvv.
2.19 Pilea involucrata 'Norfolk' vs. Chlorophytum comosum
2.20 Kalanchoe luciae / thyrsiflora vs. Echeveria cvv. and related

2.21 Dendrobium cvv. vs. Beaucarnea recurvata
2.22 Oncidium alliance hybrids vs. Polyscias fruticosa
2.23 Dracaena deremensis cvv. vs. Schefflera actinophylla / arboricola
2.24 Rhizomatous Begonia cvv. vs. Sansevieria trifasciata cvv.

2.25 Adenium obesum vs. Zamioculcas zamiifolia
2.26 Ficus benjamina cvv. vs. Haworthia spp.
2.27 Cycas revoluta vs. Tradescantia zebrina cvv.
2.28 Tillandsia cyanea vs. self-heading Philodendron cvv. ('Autumn,' 'Prince of Orange,' 'Moonlight')

2.29 Aeonium spp. vs. Euphorbia milii cvv.
2.30 Tillandsia cvv. (air plants) vs. Dieffenbachia cvv.
2.31 Hippeastrum cvv. vs. Agave spp.
2.32 Opuntia spp. vs. Calathea spp.

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¹ I'm going with Plant List's assignments for the families; several of our competitors' family affiliations are given differently by different sources, so this may not match up with what you've learned previously.