So it's come to this: I have to start doubling up on the Anthurium seedling posts, because covering a single seedling every other day has led to me getting further and further behind.1 I'll still give really special seedlings posts of their own, but the stuff we've seen over and over doesn't really need the individual attention I've been giving them. So let's look at Shavonna.
I had been somewhat excited about Shavonna when the bud was developing, because the outside of the bud (the back of the spathe) was sort of purple-red, and I thought the spathe would wind up being purple-red as well, but no. Plain red, like we've seen dozens of times before.
The seed parent isn't 0234 Ross Koz; it's the NOID red. But Shavonna has some characteristics in common with Ross -- large, flat leaves, and a certain manner of reflexing its spathe2 -- which makes me wonder if Shavonna's pollen parent might be Ross.
The thrips seem to be getting more of a foothold with the more recent leaves, unfortunately.
So a disappointing color, but nice leaves, and this is only the first bloom, and it was willing to bloom while still in a 3-inch pot, so possibly it'll get better? Somehow?
1546 Gia GiaVanni has a better shot at sticking around, not because I need another borderline orange-pink,
but because the foliage is interestingly-proportioned,
and the plant as a whole seems more thrips-resistant than average. (Yes, I'm pretty sure that's thrips damage in the bottom right of the second leaf photo, but we've seen worse. The spot in the top left of the first leaf photo, on the other hand, is heat damage from touching a fluorescent light bulb, and is totally my fault.)
The second bloom from Gia somehow ripped itself in the process of unfurling. I mean, spathes get ripped all the time, but that's almost always my fault. It's disconcerting for the plants to be ripping themselves up.
Still, though, Gia's likely to have the opportunity to bloom several more times, because the leaves are interesting and the blooms aren't bad.
1546 Gia GiaVanni and 1547 Shavonna Brooks are both from sibling group FK, and are either full or half-siblings.
The real3 Shavonna Brooks is a drag queen from Atlanta; she has a YouTube channel that I didn't have time to investigate fully, but the music on this one is great (it's kind of a slow build, but great):
Gia GiaVanni is based in New Orleans at the moment (as far as I could determine, anwyay); the audio quality on her videos tends to be better than most YouTube drag videos, but the videos are all vertical and tiny. I'd love to see what the Ursula the Sea Witch outfit in this video actually looks like, for example. This one isn't really my thing musically,
but at least the audio's not full of people shouting, and you can see her face.
-
1 (also, the Schlumbergera season actually has begun already; so far it's just the NOID white, but the seedlings will follow. I need to rearrange the plant room so I can bring up some more seedlings from the basement and give them a chance to bloom this year.)
2 Though it seems to be partially determined by the environment, different seedlings have different ways of flipping their spathes backward, depending on which part of the margin tries to flip back and how hard it works at it.
The ideal seedling doesn't reflex at all, like 0231 Rhea Listick or 1181 Tajma Stetson:
Some of them only pull back slightly, and then only at the "ears," like 0244 Sara Problem and 0330 Faye Quinette:
Some reflex only at the sides, and the spathe sort of makes a hinge in the center, like 0234 Ross Koz and 1547 Shavonna Brooks,
Some reflex at the sides, but so strongly that the spathe basically rolls itself up into a tube, like 1171 Chris of Hur:
A surprisingly large number of spathes curl back only at the very tip, e.g. 0361 Willam Belli and 0565 MysterE:
A few pull the whole spathe back, often tearing in the process, like pulling an umbrella inside-out; here are 0213 Nadya Falt and 0282 Dave Trading:
And then some give the impression of having no plan whatsoever, like 0002 Alexis Mateo and 0283 Anne Pursand, though I think this might actually be a subset of the "tube" ones, where the spathe got in its own way so much that it failed to actually form a tube:
Though Alexis looks like she might be trying for a hinge instead.
3 (well, "real," anyway)
2 Though it seems to be partially determined by the environment, different seedlings have different ways of flipping their spathes backward, depending on which part of the margin tries to flip back and how hard it works at it.
The ideal seedling doesn't reflex at all, like 0231 Rhea Listick or 1181 Tajma Stetson:
Some of them only pull back slightly, and then only at the "ears," like 0244 Sara Problem and 0330 Faye Quinette:
Some reflex only at the sides, and the spathe sort of makes a hinge in the center, like 0234 Ross Koz and 1547 Shavonna Brooks,
Some reflex at the sides, but so strongly that the spathe basically rolls itself up into a tube, like 1171 Chris of Hur:
A surprisingly large number of spathes curl back only at the very tip, e.g. 0361 Willam Belli and 0565 MysterE:
A few pull the whole spathe back, often tearing in the process, like pulling an umbrella inside-out; here are 0213 Nadya Falt and 0282 Dave Trading:
And then some give the impression of having no plan whatsoever, like 0002 Alexis Mateo and 0283 Anne Pursand, though I think this might actually be a subset of the "tube" ones, where the spathe got in its own way so much that it failed to actually form a tube:
Though Alexis looks like she might be trying for a hinge instead.
3 (well, "real," anyway)
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