So I totally admit that Darby is not attractive.
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The bloom isn't an interesting color. It's super-small. Thrips love it. And as bad as the bloom is, the foliage is even worse:
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The whole plant is just kind of garbage. But there's one thing about it that's kind of amazing, which is that it's fast. Like, record-setting, nine-months-ahead-of-schedule fast.
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The time from sowing a seed to seeing a first bloom currently averages 26 months, for the plants that have bloomed so far. And that's likely to keep increasing; I've seen one other new bud from a plant sown in 2013,1 and there have been a few blooms from late 2012, but those don't do much to push the average bloom time lower.2 Darby does. Darby is in fact a record, I think: a mere 14 months from sow to first bloom.3
Which is great news, or at least would be if Darby didn't otherwise suck so much. I've decided to wait for a second bloom before deciding what to do with her, and I might try pollinating her on the off chance that she'd have less awful children, but . . . well, don't get too attached to Darby. I probably won't even try to sell her.
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1 Specifically 0357 "Rhea Litré," who will be the subject of a later post.
2 The blooms with late-2012 sow dates would be 0334 "Jean Poole," 0329 "Gladys Panzarov," 0330 "Faye Quinette," 0346 "Lois Carmen DiNominatre" (bloom still in progress), 0344 "Formica Dinette," 0335 "Donna Fanuday" (bud aborted), and 0597 "Raven" (in progress), who produced their first buds at the ages of 25, 26, 27, 27, 27, 28, and 29 months, respectively.
3 The previous record-holder was 0282 "Dave Trading," at 15 months.
There's also a special case with 0058 "Betty Larsony," who might have started a bud at the age of 12 months, but it was never completely clear whether there was a bud or not, and if there were a bud, it never opened. In an earlier post, I credited one of the early blooms to Betty, but subsequent investigation showed that it most likely belonged to 0059 "Bijoux Tuit" and was misattributed. So Betty probably doesn't count as being faster than Dave.
2 The blooms with late-2012 sow dates would be 0334 "Jean Poole," 0329 "Gladys Panzarov," 0330 "Faye Quinette," 0346 "Lois Carmen DiNominatre" (bloom still in progress), 0344 "Formica Dinette," 0335 "Donna Fanuday" (bud aborted), and 0597 "Raven" (in progress), who produced their first buds at the ages of 25, 26, 27, 27, 27, 28, and 29 months, respectively.
3 The previous record-holder was 0282 "Dave Trading," at 15 months.
There's also a special case with 0058 "Betty Larsony," who might have started a bud at the age of 12 months, but it was never completely clear whether there was a bud or not, and if there were a bud, it never opened. In an earlier post, I credited one of the early blooms to Betty, but subsequent investigation showed that it most likely belonged to 0059 "Bijoux Tuit" and was misattributed. So Betty probably doesn't count as being faster than Dave.
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4 comments:
That is a ridiculously tiny bloom. Unless it vastly improves by the next blooming, I'd say compost it.
And to think I thought everything in the plant world moved super slow!
Paul:
And it was super short-lived, too! The first photo was taken April 3; by April 12, it was already visibly dying, and it was actually dead by April 14. So really nothing to recommend it at all except that it's really fast.
It is sometimes the case that the first bloom a seedling produces is smaller or crappier than the later ones, but they're usually not very different, and the foliage is awful and getting worse, so I'm tempted to throw her out now, rather than wait for her to try again. Probably not going to do that right away, but, you know, it's not like I don't have plenty of seedlings that do this exact color combination, much better in every way: as much as I hate to throw plants out, it's hard for me to come up with a justification for giving her another chance.
So far, I've only ever thrown Anthurium seedlings out for being dead or having scale; throwing one out just for sucking would be new.
I think you should try to trade it or sell it to a blog reader. Even if it doesn't fit the media's depiction of anthurium beauty, I think it has a certain charm.
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