Schlumbergera seedling no. 055

By this point, I imagine some of you are approaching Schlumbergera saturation, if not already past it. How many more interchangeably orange flowers is he going to expect us to look at, you might be thinking.

Well.

I up-potted eight seedlings on 30 September,¹ every one of which has now produced at least one bloom, which blooms you have already seen. Time from repotting to an open bloom ranged from 5 to 8 weeks.

On 29 October, I up-potted another four seedlings,² two of which³ had started to produce buds within a month. So presumably there will be -- barring some kind of bud-drop disaster -- another two posts about those flowers, and maybe eventually four posts. Not sure.

Then on 23 November, I up-potted 24 seedlings.⁴ After a week,⁵ I've seen no buds on any of those yet, but I expect to see at least a few eventually.

So my best guess is, you'll see a couple more at some point this month, and then a new round could start popping up in early January. But there'll be a number of days without Schlumbergera photos soon.

As far as seedling 055 specifically is concerned, not a lot to say. It's fine. Orange. Shape could maybe be better, but we'll see. TinEye gave me lots of photos of autumn leaf piles and a surprising number of pumpkins. I hesitate to name a leafless plant "Leaf Pile,"⁶ so no. 055 is hereby called "Pumpkin Festival."

Might have a new Anthurium bloom or two for you to look at shortly, by the way. Don't get excited: it's not that great. But still, how long's it been, right?

-

¹ Those being:
022 "Sad Tomato"
024 "Bryce Canyon" / "Safety Vest"
026 "Brick Wall"
054 "Helpful Gesture"
055 "Pumpkin Festival"
057 "Pyrotechnic"
060 "Wet Dog"
064 "Rose Hoses"
² (Numbers 021, 079, 083, and 099)
³ (021 and 083)
⁴ (I am writing this on 30 November.)
⁵ (008, 010, 012, 019, 023, 027, 028, 030, 031, 033, 034, 056, 061, 066, 073, 078, 084, 088, 091, 103, 104, 107, 111, 112 -- of these, 008 "Frightened Dog," 012, and 088 have all bloomed or attempted to bloom in the past, and 012 was even pretty when it did so.)
⁶ The "leaves" on Schlumbergera are in fact flattened, segmented stems.

Pretty picture: Renanstylis Queen Emma 'Nuccio's Reward'

Well. That is certainly a lot of flowers. I'm not sure what else to say about this, though. The photo might be more impressive at full size, but the background is a problem either way.

Renanstylis Queen Emma 'Nuccio's Reward' = Renanthera storiei x Rhynchostylis gigantea (Ref.)

Schlumbergera seedling no. 064

As with "Helpful Gesture" (no. 054), no. 064's buds are very striking: white, orange, and magenta shading into one another. This photo shows that better than the one for "Helpful Gesture" did.

In this case, though, it seems like the magenta and orange switch places, instead of the orange disappearing. The resulting flower is nice,

but it resembles 'Caribbean Dancer,' its seed parent, a little much. The main difference is that 'Caribbean Dancer' has a much stronger, purer red at the petal ends.

No. 064 is still pretty, I guess. I haven't decided quite how I feel about it yet.

When I put its colors into TinEye, most of the results were of other flowers. The overwhelming majority were pink roses, but I spotted a few Gerbera, Kalanchoe, and Adenium blooms in there too. There was also one incongruous photo showing three or four stacks of coiled pink garden hoses (why?), which kind of amused me, so for the name I'm going with "Rose Hoses." It's not especially evocative of the seedling's blooms, but it's fun to say, and that's the more important thing, really.

Schlumbergera seedling no. 060

I have been really surprised at the number of seedlings with severely reflexed petals. I mean, none of the varieties I started out with have unattractively reflexed petals, obviously, but numbers 007, 008 ("Frightened Dog"), 011, 013, and now 060 have all been very odd-looking. Going with "Wet Dog" for the name on this one, 'cause that's what it looks like to me.

Schlumbergera seedling no. 054

When I put the colors from seedling 054 into the TinEye search, I got a surprising number of photos from the same event. Bunch of people standing in front of a pink-red background with words on it in a language I didn't recognize. Google Translate said it was Basque, and suggested the translation "a photo of our photocall and got an iPad2 for a gesture in favor of Basque," which was not especially helpful. The photos also contained a prominent Twitter hashtag, #keinukaeuskarari, for which Google Translate suggests "flashing Help," which is alarming in a difficult-to-put-my-finger-on kind of way.

I have no idea what any of this means, and suspect maybe it has something to do with Basque nationalism (?), which is one of the many subjects about which I know so little that I have no opinions about it. So I basically stuck both translations into a word-blender in my brain and came up with "Helpful Gesture" as the official name for this seedling.

"Helpful Gesture" isn't the only non-orange seedling I've gotten so far, but it's easily the prettiest. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but in person, the petals shade from white to orange to magenta in a really pretty way. The orange mostly vanishes as the flower develops, but there's a trace of it left in the mature petals.

So "Helpful Gesture" is a keeper. The only other two seedlings I'm certain about wanting to keep around so far are no. 024 "Bryce Canyon" (so many buds!) and no. 025 "Clownfish" (such a nice color!).

Schlumbergera seedling no. 026

Going with "Brick Wall" for this one, mostly because it was one of the first seedlings to bloom. There are a surprisingly huge number of photos of brick walls on the TinEye search (Brick walls are apparently highly compelling photographic subjects. I didn't know.), and they've come up in lots of the color searches; no. 26 just happened to claim the name first.

Despite the sort of boring / hostile name, the photographs turned out well, I thought.

Pretty pictures: Rhyncholaeliocattleya Kayla's Smile

Taking a momentary break from the Schlumbergeras for a previously-scheduled orchid. Doesn't necessarily do a lot for me (too daffodilly?), but I respect a bloom that can choose a color and really commit to it like this.

Rhyncholaeliocattleya Kayla's Smile = Cattleya Sunset Beach x Rhyncholaeliocattleya Susan Stromsland (Ref.)