Anthurium no. 0590 "Sahara Davenport"

Both 0589 Hetty King and 0590 Sahara Davenport were divided from 0220 Nora Morse, in June 2014, before I had any idea what color Nora was going to bloom. This was a mistake: if there's anything I don't need, it's more pink / pink Anthurium seedlings.

It's possible that these are not all clones of the same plant (Nora's spadix sometimes has an orangish tint to it that I haven't seen yet on Hetty or Sahara), but I can't tell for sure,¹ and I'm not sure it matters. Neither Hetty nor Sahara has impressed me much.²

Sahara's foliage, like Hetty's, is pretty nice:

and although the plant as a whole isn't especially beautiful,

it at least suckers abundantly, and fuller plants might be better than less-full plants.

I doubt I need Hetty and Sahara, since they're both 1) unremarkable and 2) duplicates. If I'm keeping either of them, it'll probably be Hetty, since she's bloomed sooner and more frequently, but Sahara's not in any immediate danger. We'll see what happens.

Some of you will be interested to know that we have a first second-generation bloom already. (I noticed it the day after writing the post where I mentioned seeing a couple second-generation buds. You will understand how I managed to miss the bloom once you see it.³)

I've also spotted another second-generation bud, on 0721 Chandelier Divine Brown (daughter of 0005 Chad Michaels, granddaughter of 'Gemini'). So that's three in progress and one completed.

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¹ 0220 Nora Morse has produced enough blooms by now that I have a pretty good idea of what they look like; 0589 Hetty King has, I think, produced three, and 0590 Sahara Davenport has produced one. So far, it looks like Nora's blooms start out with a coral spadix, which turns pink over time, while Hetty and Sahara start out pink and stay pink. Nora's blooms have also been consistently a bit larger than Hetty and Sahara's. This suggests that Hetty and Sahara are clones of each other, while Nora is a different seedling. I'll likely never know for sure, though.
² I do like Nora, though, because her blooms are slightly larger and because the backs of her spathes change color in interesting ways as they age:

I mean, spathes greening with age isn't unique to Nora, but it's all about how they turn green.
³ You'll be able to see the bloom itself in the Anthurium seedling gallery whenever I finish sorting through the photos I took. The actual Adlai Lowe post won't happen until mid-May, according to the current schedule. This may or may not be enough time to think of something positive to say about it.

Schlumbergera seedling no. 003

Still trying to get posts written in advance as quickly as I can.¹ I kind of lucked out on 003A, in that a suitable name jumped out at me shortly after the first bloom opened, so I didn't have to spend a lot of time pondering what name to choose. Here was the first bloom:

I kind of figured it would, you know, keep opening, but for whatever reason, it stopped there. A second bloom, later on, did open up normally,

and so have the blooms that followed.

One of the racehorse names that I kept on the emergency names list was Protanto (though it's usually presented as Pro Tanto), a legal term from Latin meaning something along the lines of "as far as it can go," or "as much as one is able," which I gather is typically used when someone is being ordered to pay a debt or fine they're incapable of paying in full: they're ordered to pay pro tanto, to the extent they're able. I have no idea how or why it came to be applied to a racehorse, though since horse racing tends to involve large amounts of money changing hands, and gambling, I can imagine a few stories.

In any case, it seemed like an appropriate name for a flower that sometimes opens all the way and sometimes doesn't. (This has happened a few other times, and the affected seedlings usually wind up opening fully once they've gotten a little practice. 030A Diwali was a notable exception, making multiple half-assed blooms before getting its shit together, but this year, all of Diwali's blooms have been normal.)

I'm guessing 003A Pro Tanto will be making normal blooms from here on, but 28 seedlings into this year's parade of Schlumbergeras, I'm getting desperate for any kind of hook to hang a name on.² This one will do.

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¹ Among other reasons, the Illowa Orchid Show is coming up on the 19th, and I'd really like to be able to take the day off to go see that, and then spend a few days afterward sorting out the photos and scheduling posts and so forth, without needing to write a bunch of blog posts at the same time. I try to do this every year: sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
² And still 13 seedlings to name after this. At least. Oy.

Pretty picture: Bulbophyllum lobbii 'Sonoma Gold'

This one is much nicer than the previous Bulbophyllum lobbii (2013, 'Kathy's Gold'); I was particularly surprised at the size of the flowers.

I mean, the flowers weren't quite large enough to stretch across my hand, but it was close. I don't think I've ever seen a Bulbophyllum that big before.

Of course, the plant was pretty substantial, too. Maybe 'Sonoma Gold' is just an all-around giant?