Anthurium no. 1213 "Miss Foozie"

Miss Foozie is a Chicago entertainer, with a Wikipedia page, YouTube channel, and even a IMDb page, on top of all the usual stuff like Facebook and Twitter and what have you, and I gather she's kind of a big deal. I wasn't familiar with her before this, but then, I'm not in Chicago, and don't spend much time in gay bars or at Pride parades or whatever, so that's sort of to be expected.

Miss Foozie apparently doesn't consider herself a drag queen; her Twitter description emphasizes that she is a "character artist" without mentioning drag at all, and the Wikipedia article goes out of its way to say she's not a drag queen ("Today, Miss Foozie is not a 'drag queen'. She is a 'personality.'" [sic]). Why? Is there a story there? No idea.

In any case. The seedling has turned out to be more interesting and pleasant than it first appeared. The first bloom never managed to completely unfurl its spathe,

which was unexpected, since it seemed to be otherwise pretty well-developed. Not the most interesting bloom: pink's a fine color but I have a lot of pink-spathed seedlings already, and there was thrips damage later on,

so I figured Miss Foozie the seedling would be a pretty easy one to discard. But then a second bud appeared, and developed into a much larger inflorescence, without significant thrips scarring, and with green "ears"¹ on the spathe. Which was actually really pleasant.

So, when I saw that the seedling was hanging on by a single root, and needed to be repotted or it would die, I went ahead and moved it to a 4-inch pot. That wasn't very long ago (28 July), so I don't know whether she's going to get herself back together yet, but I'm rooting for her. (So to speak.)

The foliage is mostly pretty good; it has an odd texture to it (not bad odd, just . . . different), and it looks like the thrips haven't been able to attack it much.

So I guess Miss Foozie's a keeper if she wants to be. It'll take a while before I know one way or the other, though.

Worth noting that the green-ears thing was just mentioned a few posts ago, in the post for 1224 Perry Watkins, and Miss Foozie looks even more like 'Pandola' (large, broad pink spathes with a thin margin of green on the ears) than Perry did. In both cases, I'm frustrated that the green doesn't show up in photos any better than it does -- in person, it seems like the color is much more obvious.

The next post will be 1299 Sinthia D Meanor, a.k.a. The Really Weird One. I'm excited. Are you excited?

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¹ "Ears" seems like a really bad way to describe the location, and yet, it's apparently what Anthurium specialists say, and I'm unable to come up with something more appropriate besides "lobes." And "lobes" doesn't strike me as any clearer about the location than "ears" is, so ears it is, I guess. But it still bothers me.

Anthurium no. 0946 "Mysti Oldhaze"

Very very short on time. Mysti's red/red, and has good-sized spathes for a plant in a 4-inch pot, which is pleasant,

and the foliage is pretty good as well, without a lot of thrips damage or other problems, so that's good.

The first inflorescence also lasted a long time -- I couldn't tell you specifically how long because that's not something I make a point of keeping up with, but noticeably long -- so it has a lot going for it.

I don't know that there's a particularly compelling reason to keep it, since there are already plenty of red/reds and it's not doing anything especially new, but sincere there's no obvious reason to get rid of it either, I'm willing to postpone the decision until I need to make room among the 4-inch plants again.

The name is my own, I think. At least this particular spelling of it is. I wound up altering a lot of roller derby names to make the pronunciation more intuitive or choose a different pun from the original. (Roller derby names are often kind of violent.)

Anthurium no. 1373 "Donet McKim"

Donet McKim the drag queen is part of the sub-subculture of "pageant queens," the people who participate in drag as a competitive activity, with titles and prizes at stake. I don't have a lot to say about her specifically, though I do think it's interesting (and neat, and terrible) how humans find niches within niches. (Maybe it's a Dunbar's number situation? Like, once you have about 150 people interested in a thing, the group starts to split into different factions that are more interested in specific aspects of the thing, and then distinct cultures start to form around the different factions?) Here's an example of Donet's drag:

And here are a few (pretty impressive) photos:

http://ourcommunityroots.com/?p=3362

Donet McKim the seedling is notable mostly for having absurdly unlucky spathes. The very first time I tried to get a photo of the first bloom, the spathe caught itself somehow on the light above it and ripped,

and then the second time, I managed to get a few photos of the spathe as it was opening,

but once it had in fact opened all the way, it tore itself on the light again.

So it's been about three months and two blooms now, and I still haven't managed to get a decent photo. (And it's not like the seedling is in a uniquely bad location; it's just unlucky, or inexplicably attracted to the light, or something.)

Even if it were intact, this wouldn't be a particularly interesting bloom. The size and thrips resistance are good, but it's not as if I don't have plenty of red / yellow seedlings to choose from. The foliage is pretty nice, though.

So it'll be staying around as long at least as long as it takes to produce a third inflorescence, and I won't be in a hurry to discard it after that either, but it's not really doing anything new, so I don't expect it to stick around forever.

Anthurium no. 1262 "Reggie"

Not a lot to say about Reggie, so this will be boring. (Sorry.)

Spathes are pretty small, but it's bloomed twice while in a 3-inch pot, and I like the spathe color.

Leaves aren't gorgeous or anything, but they seem to be pretty resistant to thrips, which is a plus.

The overall habit of the plant is not good: the internodes are awfully long, considering how old the plant is and the kind of care it's been getting.

That said, I'm probably going to keep Reggie around for a while, because the color is uncommon and I like it.

There is an actual performer who goes by "Reggie," though this is difficult to search for on-line, and the best I could find was this page, which says that they're a drag king who also goes by "T. Shane LeBeaux,"¹ based in New Mexico.

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¹ The "T." apparently stands for "Thunder."