Random plant event: Cordyline glauca

After hearing a while back that Cordyline glauca was a man-made hybrid, I attempted to track down its origins for this post, and found a few sites implying that it wasn't a hybrid at all, that it was actually a variety of Cordyline brasiliensis. So then I went looking for information about Cordyline brasiliensis, but GRIN has never heard of C. brasiliensis, Plant List was apparently broken Saturday morning, and Tropicos has heard of C. brasiliensis but was unable to provide me with any information about it that I could understand. (Which is a problem I have every time I try to use Tropicos for anything.)

So I still have no idea what Cordyline glauca's origin might be. I suppose we're lucky that no lives are at stake.

Fortunately, we don't need to know its origin in order to appreciate its flowers. I've posted pictures of C. glauca flowers previously, but 1) the older photos were produced under the lower-light conditions of the ex-job's greenhouse, and the inflorescence was consequently a bit stretched-out looking, 2) these are better pictures than those in the other post, and 3) the flowers are almost exactly the same color as the current blog background, and one doesn't often get opportunities to be so matchy-matchy on the blog.

I've only tried Cordyline glauca indoors once; I don't recall it ever having any pests, but it also didn't grow very much. It sort of limped along for a few years, then died. Cause of death was undetermined, but I suspect at least some of the problem was that it wasn't in strong enough light. I didn't try to replace it because the specimens available around here are usually pretty big (~3-5 feet / 1-1.5 m tall) and expensive (~$30-40).

Flowering is, of course, unlikely indoors, though probably not impossible.

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Unrelated but still interesting: having scale infestations suddenly seems . . . not so bad.


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