Saturday, June 4, 2016

Anthurium no. 0367 "Petey Gibson"

I get Petey mixed up in my head with 0366 Maureen Biologist a lot. Similar bloom color (though Petey's darker red than Maureen), adjacent ID numbers, potentially nice foliage with "lizard" venation.


Petey distinguishes himself from the other red and dark red blooms in the mid to high 300s by having unusually long, narrow foliage, which has become more extreme as he's aged. The early leaves were only a little narrower than average,

I know. It's the best picture I've got, gimme a break.

but the trait has been getting more dramatic as the seedling ages. They're also folding themselves along the midrib more and more with each new leaf, which makes them look even narrower in photos:


A few other plants have done something along the same lines, which surprised me, since none of the parent varieties are so extreme. Presumably a few recessive genes are showing themselves. It appears to be most likely when genes from 'Gemini' meet up with the ones from the NOID red, though that's tough to prove, since I'm not 100% certain about any of the pollen parents, for any of the seedlings.

Other seedlings with long, narrow leaves. Clockwise from top left: 0040 Ivy Winters, 0464 DQ, 0779 Hollee Luja, 0768 Glenda Bender.

Petey has some ongoing scale problems. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is; at least some of the trouble appears to be the result of having scale-prone neighbors.


Verdict: keeper, at least until the scale situation becomes clearer.

Random site that might be of interest: THE POISON GARDEN website (all-caps in the original, don't blame me), which contains a lot of interesting stuff about various poisonous plants. I found it via MetaFilter, in a post about Balkan endemic nephropathy, a disease found in isolated villages near the Danube River which defied explanation for many years but now appears to be the result of ingestion of a "medicinal" plant, Aristolochia clematitis.

The Aristolochia post is interesting by itself, but there are plenty more like that at the site, so if you like reading about people suffering and dying because of plants, you'll love THE POISON GARDEN. If not, wait, and I'll try to find something else.


2 comments:

Virginia Burton said...

Thanks, but there's enough suffering and dying on your blog!

Tijana said...

I loveeee your blog. I am not sure why it was so important to me for you too see this comment (and why I looked for the latest blog entry in order to better the chances of you seeing it)...but the strangest thing is, I am Serbian, in the medical field and actually know about BEN.

Random? Weird?

Ahyhow, lots of love.

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