Grab Bag

Today, we have a few odds and ends that aren't a big enough deal for their own post, but are nevertheless sort of interesting.

1.

I don't think this is the first peloric Phalaenopsis I've ever seen in person, but it may well be the second. This was at the ex-job.

I can't tell if I like peloric orchids or not. I sort of feel like I ought to, but they make me strangely uncomfortable.


2.

Anthurium seedling # 198 ("Marge Hadron-Coleida") has an unexpected house guest (on the right, in the picture). I didn't plant anything else in there on purpose, and it's too small, so far, to make a definite ID, but my guess is that we're looking at a Murraya paniculata seedling. We'll have a better idea once it starts to grow some real leaves. (These are cotyledons, or "seed leaves.")

I'm not sure what to do about this. The Anthurium seedling is one of the few I've managed to get from my NOID purple-blooming plant, and as such is more valuable to me than the average Anthurium; at the same time, both the other Murrayas I've managed to propagate so far were lost in the Great Purge,¹ so a chance to start over with a new Murraya seedling would be nice.

It's possible that both plants would be just fine if I separated them, but I'm nervous enough about it that I'm at least going to wait until I'm sure what the mystery seedling is before I attempt it. And I might not attempt it then, either. And odds are they'll both get scale and have to be thrown out before either one gets big enough to transplant anyway, so probably I'm getting myself nervous over nothing.


3.

I don't talk about Homalomena 'Perma Press' very often on the blog. Mine doesn't look great, though not through any fault of the plant's -- the problem is that it's bigger than the space I can give it, so the leaves aren't able to grow up properly, but instead grow up until they hit the shelf above them, and then sort of randomly snake along in whatever direction looks good. It hasn't helped, either, that 'Perma Press' got tangled up in the Monstera deliciosa one shelf over, so I occasionally ripped leaves when taking it out to water.

That being said, though, it's been surprisingly accepting of its situation so far, and looks better than it has any right to.² And now that it's started a third growing tip, it might wind up filling in enough to be presentable in the future. Homalomenas have never done that much for me, but if this sort of thing keeps up, I may yet find myself respecting them.


4.

Some kind of miscommunication in the Petal Pigmentation Department, obviously. (Things haven't been the same since Sherri retired.)


5.

I don't know the name of this plant; it wasn't identified. It had a certain Seduminess to it, though, so that's my guess. (If you have reason to think otherwise, leave a comment.) The flowers are obviously not gorgeous or anything, but I kinda like 'em. And they coordinate well with the blog colors at the moment.

-

¹ Technically untrue: there is a third, that went in the terrarium when I redid the terrarium planting. It's survived, but not really thrived, and is in the process of being overrun by Begonias, so I don't know that I expect it to last much longer.
² As of last September:

I don't have an older picture to compare this to, because, I think, I was never certain that the plant was going to last long enough to be worth photographing. But I've had it since April 2009. At the time, it fit into a 4-inch / 10 cm pot; now it's in an 8-inch / 20 cm pot.