Schlumbergera seedling no. 055(B)

055B is as close as any of the seedlings have gotten to looking like the seed parent, 'Caribbean Dancer,' but 'Caribbean Dancer' is just red, while 055B starts out orange-red and gets redder and redder with age. The tube color intensifies too, from pink-magenta to a darker magenta-magenta. It's not unusual for Schlumbergera blooms to get darker and/or redder with time, but this is an exceptionally dramatic (and pretty!) case. Not a huge bloomer, but better than a lot of them on their first time out: I think I got three or four flowers total.

I only came up with twelve name options with TinEye; possibly I wasn't in the right mood for it. I suppose that might make it easier to choose one, though. Let's see how it goes:

Let's see. So Good Cop Bad Cop is out on the grounds of being long. Prototype doesn't really make any sense. Pork Butt is amusing to contemplate but obviously, painfully wrong.

I find Pit Bull almost interesting, but I've also been naming the really terrible blooms "_____ Dog," and that might be confusing. You might or might not be crazy about 055B, but whatever it is, it's not a dog.

There's nothing especially Loopy about the flower, so we'll toss that one.

Fiction (Fictions? Fictional?) seems like just begging for something confusing to happen. ("I'm sorry? You're looking for a fictional cactus? Do you know what 'fictional' means?")

It's not impossible that Shocktop might be trademarked.

Gasworks probably doesn't have the most pleasant associations for people, and doesn't really make any sense anyway.

I like the idea of naming a seedling Hovercraft, but can't come up with any rational defense for doing so, which makes me think I probably shouldn't.

Which leaves us three options: Invitation, Fort Venus, and Secret Intensity. I like all three to some degree, but there are problems with all of them too.

Invitation is a neutral to good word, on its own; generally people like being invited to things, I think, right? I mean, it's usually less upsetting than not being invited to things. It's a little generic, but I don't imagine it's been used before for a Schlumbergera. I can imagine it working.

Fort Venus is a twist on the photo's "Venus Fort," and I like the contrast: the sexy, feminine Venus juxtaposed with the ugly military reality of "fort." On the other hand, I do already have a "fort" bloom,¹ and maybe it's too early to be repeating words?

Secret Intensity sounds like it wants to be some kind of personal hygiene product.² Or maybe it's what the journalists write about you after you go on your killing spree.³ It's just vague enough to seem like it means something, without really meaning anything. Also there's nothing particularly secret about the seedling, as far as I know. Though I suppose if there's something out there being all obvious and BLLLEEEEUUUURRRRRG then it's really not much of a secret.

In the end, I think I like the concept of "Fort Venus" more than I care about repeating words, and it just kinda looks like a "Fort Venus," so that's what we're gonna call this one.

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¹ ("Sofa Fort")
² Though I suppose "intensity" is not something one normally wants in a personal hygiene product. ("Hmmm, let's see . . . Summer's Eve, RepHresh, Massengill . . . Oh! Intensity! That sounds like the one I want!" "This deodorant is intense, brah!" etc.)
³ ("Though most people only saw a mild-mannered plant breeder who cared about his husband, dog, and collection of tropical houseplants, Mr. Subjunctive possessed a secret intensity few people ever glimpsed.")