Pretty picture: Epidendrum embreei

[shrug]

It's okay, I guess. Anybody have strong feelings about it one way or the other?

Question for the Hive Mind: Aloe variegata

It got cold here (officially 35F / 2C in Iowa City) last Saturday (22 Sep), so I'm currently in the throes of trying to reintegrate the plants that got to summer outside into the plants that didn't. This is, of course, wreaking merry havoc on the collection, spreadsheets, husband, and myself: it's like solving a Sudoku while having to live inside it.

Slightly before this happened, though, one of the three Aloe variegatas I had outside went all weird on me, and I'm unsure about the reason why, so I thought I'd pitch it to y'all. That, and I didn't have anything else to write about today. (Enormous photo backlog. I'm working on it.)

The weirdness.

Alternate angle.
This only happened to one of the three plants, and only the Aloe variegatas. It happened before the freeze, though we'd been getting cold nights for a while prior to this. (The Aloes would have been left outside in the garage if it was going to be above 55F/13C at night, and brought inside otherwise. I believe I was pretty consistent about this.) Since coming inside, some of the bleached and shriveled areas have dehydrated, but it doesn't appear to have spread any. There are no signs of any pests that I'm familiar with.

My guess is cold damage, but since I've never actually seen this before, I'd appreciate it if someone could either confirm this or offer an alternate theory.

Pretty picture: Dendrobium Spider Lily

I wish that I could have taken this picture without all the background clutter, but alas. I didn't shrink this photo down as much as usual, so there's a fair amount of detail there to be seen, if you open it in a separate window. Alternately, you can just check out the photos of this plant from previous shows: (2010) (2011).



Scalepocalypse 2012 update:

Callisia fragrans (25 Sep 2012, basement) -- discarded.

Music Video: Titus Jones "Dance Alarm" (Nicki Minaj / Eminem / Britney Spears / Dev / Taio Cruz / Lady Gaga / Owl City / Carly Rae Jepsen / Cascada / Avicii / Etta James)

So Titus Jones has a new "album"¹ out, as of last Friday. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to listen to it yet, so I'm not sure which tracks, if any, will turn out to be my favorites, but this looks like it'll be one of them.² Conveniently enough, this is also the only one for which a video has been made.

The video is a little . . . much, just to warn you.³



That was a pretty representative bit of the album as a whole, so if you liked that, you'll probably want to download the whole thing from Titus Jones' site. (It's free.)

-

¹ Does the word "album" still mean anything? Discuss.
² "Close to Blowin' in the Deep" is also an early favorite, as is "I Wanna Believe in Fire Love." It's possible that I may just like Adele.
³ Hell, Nicki Minaj's outfits alone probably qualify the video for "a little much" status, never mind all the strobe-light editing and effects and shit.
I suppose that puts the video as a whole somewhere in the "way the hell too much" category.
Perhaps I'm just getting old: I was warned that this sort of thing would happen.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum Lynleigh Koopowitz

Lynleigh Koopowitz is Paphiopedilum delenatii x P. malipoense, according to its tag at the show. I was so pleased that someone had included the ancestry information that for a long time I was afraid to look it up, for fear that they'd gotten it wrong. Eventually, though, I steeled myself, went to Google, and -- it's accurate. So I love you, whoever it is who tagged this orchid. Bring more orchids to the show next year. Bring all the orchids to the show next year, even.


As for the flower itself, I suppose it's okay. Doesn't do much for me, but that might be the photo more than the flower. Some flowers are not improved by back-lighting.

Random plant event: Stapelia variegata

Hey, remember this guy?

(June 2012)
This is the Stapelia variegata (more correctly Orbea variegata) I got from Cactus Jungle earlier this summer.

I'd said at the time that I didn't necessarily expect flowers ever, but I'd given it an outdoor spot, and we'd see what happened. Then at the beginning of September, I saw a couple buds:

(4 September)
And then there was an agonizing couple weeks while I waited for them to develop enough to open and hoped that they wouldn't fall off. At some point during this wait, I noticed the plant had grown a lot in the three months it's been here. I hadn't realized how small it was to begin with.

(10 September)
It also lost the red color it had when it arrived, as you can see. That was never very likely to last, considering how little light I can offer indoors, though I'm surprised that it couldn't keep the color on the west side of a house, outdoors, in a summer when it almost never rained.

In any case, the flower finally opened on 18 September, and it was worth the wait:

(This'll get a lot bigger if opened in a separate window.)
It's only about 2.5 in / 7 cm in diameter, much smaller than the S. gigantea flower. The smell was similar to S. gigantea: unpleasant, but not strong enough to be detectable outside a fairly small radius of the plant, though flies seemed to find it just fine. (In the ten minutes or so that I had it out in front of the house to get pictures, there were at least five flies buzzing around it. None ever actually landed on the flower while I was taking pictures, which is just as well for my purposes but makes me wonder whether the flower was perhaps not fully charged yet, or something. They may also have just been confused about the location: it was a windy morning.)

(Close-up of the bit in the very center.)
As is customary with Stapelia blooms, I let Sheba sniff it for a while. She was very interested, and sniffed pretty long and hard, then pronounced it plodding and pedestrian, without the playful, impish notes of squirrel carrion or the complexity and layering of feces. She'd been more enthusiastic about the S. gigantea smell. This will probably be the last time I ask her for a stapeliad review.

(The placement of the flower makes it difficult to photograph it in context of the plant: this was the best I could do.)
The back of the flower reminds me a bit of a hellebore:

The plant has a good six or seven more buds on it. This is a little worrisome. One flower's smell isn't intolerable, but I don't know what two, or four, might be like. The most compelling reasons to allow multiple buds to open simultaneously would be for 1) pictures and 2) the opportunity to get some seed pods. As for the latter: a quick skim of this page, which goes into considerable botanical detail about how stapeliads are pollinated, only revealed that it's too complicated to figure out from a quick skim. We have a lot of houseflies that have been trying to take shelter in the house, as the days have gotten colder; I may just leave the matter in their capable hands legs. Up to now, their only use has been as entertainment for Sheba; it'd be nice to see them doing more to earn their keep.

Random plant event: Zamioculcas zamiifolia 'Zamicro'

So this story starts on 30 Aug 2011, in Cedar Rapids. We were at Frontier, my favorite Cedar Rapids garden center, and I noticed that they had a bunch of new Zamioculcas zamiifolia 'Zamicro' plants in. Or possibly the cultivar was 'Mini:' I'm unclear whether those are the same plant under two different names or not. (There's a picture of 'Zamicro'/'Mini' from an earlier visit to Cedar Rapids here, if you're interested.)

Anyway. So the table in there was littered with a bunch of dropped leaflets from these plants, and I picked some up and asked the guy if he minded if I took some home, since they'd already fallen off and everything. And he said, essentially, knock yourself out. So then I felt obligated to buy something, and wound up getting a Sansevieria trifasciata 'Black Gold,'¹ and took the leaflets home with me, and then realized: I don't even really like Zamioculcas. And 'Zamicro'/'Mini' is less attractive to me than the species, so I had no compelling reason to bring the leaflets home in the first place and what the hell had I been thinking.

But, you know how it is. When there is propagatable plant material, I will try to propagate it. It's my nature.

So it is with mixed emotions that I announce that those leaflets, after a year of cultivation, have begun to produce new growth:

(Side view.)

(Top-down view.)
Given that there's a year invested in these already, I see no reason not to keep going. Best-case scenario would be that they turn out to be much easier to grow than the species,² in which case I will have to like them on principle, even if I don't like the look as well.

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¹ Which was doing unusually well for a S. trifasciata in my care until a couple months ago: the husband redid some shelves in the living room, so the plant wound up in a new location. Which it is most unhappy about. Really I should just learn the lesson already and stop trying to grow them, but that's a whole other story.
² In my experience, Z. zamiifolia is easy to keep alive, but it's next to impossible to take a plant that looks bad and turn it into one that looks good. While it's true that they are very slow to drop leaves, they're also very slow to replace them. My longest-lived plant has about the same number of leaves now that it had six years ago when I got it. They may be a completely different set of leaves, but the plant didn't look good then, and it still doesn't look good now.

Pretty (?) picture: Maxillaria tenuifolia

Not sure how I feel about this flower. Are they easy to grow? I could probably manage to like it, if it's easy to grow.


The tag said "Max. tenulifolia," with an extra "L," so we get to add one more to the big Orchid Show Error Scoreboard:

wrong tags: 6
incomplete tags: 1
missing tags: 9

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

Nothing terribly exciting going on here with Sheba; her bald patches haven't really changed since the last time I mentioned it, two weeks ago. We're giving her the Benadryl a little more often, but the whole process is still a little disorganized.

This photo was taken at the top of the stairs to the basement. Which is possibly obvious.

Nothing's new with Nina at all, though it looks like the Peperomia puteolata is going to work out okay in the terrarium.

Pretty pictures: Masdevallia Peaches and Cream

This is the second time photos of these flowers have been posted; the first time was back in 2010. This time around, the name was more complete: "Masdevallia Peaches and Cream (ignea x constricta)," as opposed to just Masd. ignea x constricta, which I appreciate.


I stand by my previous comments. This is probably my least favorite Masdevallia, of all those I've posted photos of before. (The most favorite would be Masd. Sunset Jaguar 'Night Breed', posted earlier this year.) The shape is fine, but that color just does nothing for me at all.


The photography could probably have been better too; looking at these pictures now, I'm struck by how washed-out everything looks. Oh well.

Edited to add a Scalepocalypse 2012 update:

Cryptanthus NOID (11 Sep 2012, basement) -- neemed.

I don't think I'm winning.

Random plant event: Rhipsalis NOID

I think these are maybe Rhipsalis rhombea, but I'm not sure. The tag when I bought it said it was Rhipsalis micrantha, but I decided some time ago that the tag was probably wrong.

In any case, I bought it in March 2011, and it flowered for the first time in February 2012. The flowers are self-fertile, and will produce fruit on their own, so I had seeds a short time later. I started the seeds on 15 Jun 2012. This is where they were as of mid-August:

For a sense of scale: the square of vermiculite in the photo is about 2 inches / 5 cm on a side. The vermiculite isn't normal vermiculite color, because I used un-sterilized vermiculite from a previous project, so there's . . . black stuff on it. I don't know what the black stuff is. I suppose it could be something bad, but I have more fruits, and they're fast germinators, so I can always start again.

And by the way: I know it'd probably make more sense to propagate cuttings, if I were going to propagate this plant, but 1) previous attempts to root cuttings have mostly been unsuccessful, and 2) if one of my plants produces seeds, I am unable to resist trying to germinate them.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum NOID

No tag again. Interesting flower, though the picture perhaps doesn't do it justice.


wrong tags: 5
incomplete tags: 1
missing tags: 9

It's occasionally very weird to me to realize that a plant as unusual as this one actually lives in a person's house (or greenhouse, at least). And most likely, it's a house that's not even that far away from me. Midwest, at least.

There's not really anything more to that thought; I just occasionally have to recalibrate my sense of what's exotic and what's mundane, and I guess this is one of those times.

I had a similar moment a couple weeks ago, except about age/time instead of exotic/mundane, when I realized that I own and use a set of towels that are older than most of this year's University of Iowa freshmen. (Towels were from 1991; the freshmen are mostly from 1993-94.) I suddenly felt very, very old. Also highly committed to buying our next set of towels from JCPenney, 'cause damn. Some quality towelage there.

Scalepocalypse 2012 update:

Aloe 'Firebird' (4 Sep 2012, basement) -- neemed.

Walkaway: Aechmea 'Little Harv'

This is one of those plants that I would have been super-excited about if I'd encountered it in, say, 2009, when I still had money and space and was collecting plants faster than I ever had before (or ever would again). But it was a solid 3 or 4 feet (0.9-1.2 m) across and cost $50, so there was no way.

These pictures don't match my memory of the colors very well at all; in my memory, the bracts were more violet and less orange, and the leaves were less green and more gray. Google sides with my camera, though, in both cases, so apparently neem fumes have damaged my brain or something.

There was a pup to the side of the main plant (in the first picture, it's barely visible to the left of and slightly behind the parent), which I thought about asking if they'd sell to me. The size thing would eventually be a problem one way or the other, of course. More sensible impulses eventually prevailed. Maybe someday.

Pretty pictures: Zygopetalum Arthur Elle

Pictures turned out a little too dark on this one, maybe.


Don't know much about this plant. Arthur Elle is a cross between Zygopetalum Blackii and Zygopetalum B. G. White. I've never tried to grow a Zygopetalum, and don't anticipate ever doing so in the future. (Nothing personal against zygos; it's more that I suspect them of having something personal against me.) I enjoy the flowers, though.

Random plant event: Sansevieria cylindrica

I have had this Sansevieria cylindrica since June 19, 2008. It had two leaves when I got it. It still had two leaves four years later, on June 19, 2012.

Now it has three leaves. I suppose technically it's more like two and a half, but it'll be three at some point.

Pretty picture: Doritaenopsis Ox Firebird 'OX1495'

I go back and forth on whether or not I like this kind of Phalaenopsis flower. Currently I'm thinking it seems a little busy.



Scalepocalypse 2012 update:

Aloe striata (1 Sep 2012, plant room) -- discarded because the infestation was pretty far along, and because the plant had sort of outgrown its spot anyway and I had already been toying with the idea of throwing it out.
Philodendron 'Congo Green' (1 Sep 2012, plant room) -- only one actual insect spotted, so I neemed it.

Apparently the scale on the Alpinia was not as confined to the Alpinia as I'd thought, as these two were both in the same general area. Other plants in the vicinity have been pre-emptively sprayed.

*sigh*

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture, with bonus Question for the Hive Mind

I mentioned in the last Sheba/Nina post that the Ctenanthe burle-marxii I'd planted in there had died and I wasn't sure what I was going to replace it with.

That question has been settled, at least for the moment: I bought a Peperomia puteolata ($3 at the ex-job) to fill that space, and also put in a Canna seed just for the hell of it.

There's no picture of the latter, because it hasn't actually produced any foliage yet. I just made a hole in the seed coat, soaked it in water until I saw a root emerging, and then planted it in the terrarium, so it may or may not work. If it does work, it will either quickly become too large for the space or struggle along without enough light until I take pity on it and kill it. Not sure which way that will go. But I had a ton of seeds from last year that I never got around to starting, so I figured I may as well try that and see how it goes. Nina, I'm sure, would like something in there that's a bit more climbable.

Meanwhile, Nina is shedding her skin again.

That's not as big of an event as I've made it sound -- she does it all the time, actually -- but I don't very often get a picture of it happening. In the above, the fungusy-looking stuff in the upper left is just dead-leaf debris from the Episcia -- I'm pretty sure there's no actual fungus. The brown and green in the upper right is a Begonia 'Tiger Kitten' leaf that the crickets have eaten a hole into. When the picture was taken, Nina had only managed to clear the old skin from her face, though when I looked in again about half an hour later, none of the dead skin was there anymore.

Speaking of skin: Sheba's whole allergy situation is improving, though slowly and incompletely. We could probably be more aggressive about the Benadryl: I've been giving her 25 mg in the morning when I feed her, but she usually doesn't get a second dose. Even so, her right side is basically filled back in completely. Her left side still has some spots, but they're noticeably better than they were two weeks ago, which I suppose is something.

I also have a weed-ID question for your consideration, which may or may not be related to the Sheba-allergy stuff. When the weeds first started to come up this spring, I decided to let a couple of pokeweeds (Phytolacca americana) stay, because I think they're kind of pretty. One of the pokeweeds turned out to be something else: although the young plants looked more or less identical, and both have developed extremely thick stems (maybe 2 inches / 5 cm in diameter?), the leaves on one of them never got any bigger than about 4 inches (10 cm) long, and are narrower than those on P. americana. Also the stem has stayed green, not pink, and the flowers are tiny and white and obviously something completely different. The non-pokeweed also grew much taller (about 12-15 feet / 3.5-4.5 m), as you can see in this picture:

And here's a close-up of the flowers:

I've let it continue to grow, because . . . I don't know. After the drought got to a certain point, I kind of decided that I was happy enough to see anything growing, and I didn't care what it was. Plus I was curious about what it was going to do. The overall plant shape, and the shape of the leaves, resemble some of the Amaranthus species pictures on line, especially A. tuberculatus, A. australis, and A. cannabinus, but none of those are quite a match (maybe the flowers haven't developed enough yet, though). In any case, I'm wondering if anybody knows what this is, and whether or not it, by itself, could be causing Sheba allergy problems. The flowers are fairly small and inconspicuous, so wind-pollination wouldn't be out of the question, right? And if it's wind-pollinated, maybe it could also be allergenic?