Unfinished business: Araucaria bidwillii

On 17 September 2013, I got three seeds of Araucaria bidwillii from seedman.com.

I got germination on only one of them, the following January,¹

25 January 2014.
and it was large enough to move into a 4-inch (10 cm) pot by April (though the photo below was taken in May):

21 May 2014.
And then, apparently, I stopped documenting its progress. (This post, from May 2014, is the last time I mentioned it here.) But it's been doing fine:

4 April 2016.
Which is about the size it should be, as a 2 1/2 year old. I think I'm going to need to relocate it soon, because it's getting too tall for the kitchen window where it's been living, and the location is becoming unsuitable in other ways: I suspect the lower ring of branches is pointed downward because all the light is coming from the side of the plant. If the light were coming from above, like it's supposed to, they might be more horizontal. I suppose I'll find out whether my suspicions are correct when I move it.

A much older plant I bought in December 2006 (as a plant: I didn't start it from seed) has become way too large to photograph easily. The last time I did so was, coincidentally, September 2013:

I estimate that it was about a year old when I bought it, which would make it seven and a half when that photo was taken; it's nearly ten and a half now. I can't get pictures at the moment,² but I'm making a note to try when it warms up a bit, because it's impressive. (Even if it weren't impressive, I'm apparently overdue for a photo.)

A. bidwillii has been an exceptionally trouble-free plant for me. No bugs, no rot, very little branch drop: I am apparently simulating the exact environment it's looking for. The worst problem I have with it is that the leaves are as sharp and pointy as they look, so it's kind of a pain to bring upstairs to water, but I only have to do that every four weeks, so even that isn't that big of a problem. Heartily recommended, should you happen to encounter one somewhere.

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¹ Which is typical. Maybe even better than average. I don't have much problem with seeds I've produced, but I'm not great with seeds from elsewhere. Whether this is the fault of the source, or I'm not germinating them properly, or what, I'm not sure: I just know that when I buy seeds, I generally don't wind up getting plants out of it, so it's mostly a waste of time and money.
² No location large enough for a photo in the house, and it's too cold outside at the moment.

Unfinished business: Strelitzia juncea and Araucaria bidwillii, plus Something Personal-ish

Last September, I got 18 seeds from seedman.com: 5 Strelitzia juncea, 10 Calathea lutea, and 3 Araucaria bidwillii. Including shipping, I paid $16.80.

I knew going in that all three plants are slow and irregular germinators, but even taking that into account, I've been really disappointed. Two Strelitzia seeds came up in October and November, and those look like they're going to be reasonably healthy plants, knock wood. I also have an Araucaria seedling as of January, which appears to have survived being transplanted (did that on 10 April), and is producing new growth as you read this. But I had been expecting a lot more plants than three, and more species than two. If I want to pay $5 for a plant, there are plenty of garden centers around that would accommodate me.

The Strelitzia seedlings as of yesterday.
Also shown: Polyscias fruticosa 'Elegans' (upper right), Euphorbia leuconeura seedling (right center), unidentified Episcia (lower right).
I've purchased several other kinds of seeds from seedman.com,¹ and in most of those cases, I think it was my fault I didn't get any plants. Usually the problem was moisture, either too much or too little (or both). But I feel like I was doing everything right with these seeds, and I'm not getting any better results. So I'm pretty frustrated.

The Araucaria seedling, post-transplant. I was worried for a little bit, but the top third of the stem is all new since the transplant, so it's clearly fine. (Left: Tradescantia pallida; right: Ceropegia woodii.)
I gave up on the Calatheas, and the ungerminated Strelitzias, on Tuesday (20 May); the remaining Araucaria seeds are probably not going to do anything either, but they're in one of the pretzel containers and consequently require no maintenance, so they get a little while longer to try.² This is also probably the last time I buy anything from seedman.com. The service was prompt, as far as I know they sent me the things I asked for, and the prices aren't outrageous, but there's little point in buying the seeds if doing so doesn't eventually result in new plants.

In other news, on Tuesday morning I woke up with what was likely the worst pain I have ever experienced, just to the left of my spine, on my upper back. Well, upper back, shoulder, and neck. That whole area. It turns out that not only is it possible to whimper involuntarily, it's possible to whimper involuntarily without even being fully aware that you're doing it. The pain became, eventually, manageable with ibuprofen. Wednesday was less awful but still pretty bad.

I was worried enough about it to see a doctor late on Wednesday. The best-case scenario I was envisioning was that she'd tell me to just eat lots of ice cream and read my new book about Anthurium breeding,³ and that that would make the pain go away completely, and it would never come back again.

And, well, not quite. The diagnosis was that it was just a pulled trapezius, albeit maybe an especially painfully pulled trapezius. Which I suppose I'm glad that it's nothing serious (The worst case scenario was a slipped/ruptured/herniated disc, which seemed plausible when I was googling on Tuesday night.), and that it will heal. On the other hand, though, if this wasn't something particularly serious, that means that it could happen again. I could wake up shrieking in pain basically any day from now until I die, and there's apparently nothing to be done about it. So, going to sleep at night has just become that much more fraught.

Though I suppose in theory, anybody could wake up in staggering amounts of pain at any time, from one thing or another. The possibility was always there; it just wasn't real to me until this week.

In any case. I did at least get a prescription out of it, because my doctor has a sense of humor. (And because I asked.)

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¹ Pandanus utilis, Cissus rhombifolia, Cordyline fruticosa, Haworthia pumila, Ficus religiosa, Trichocereus peruvianus (possibly Echinopsis?), an Aloe assortment, Carludovica palmata, and a Schefflera of unremembered species (probably S. actinophylla).
² The seeds were still, in theory, capable of germinating, but the more time went by, the less optimistic I was that anything would happen. Also, the more time passed without any sprouts, the more cool things the Anthurium seedlings did, and the less exciting the prospect of having a Calathea lutea seemed when I could up-pot Anthuriums and watch them do cool things.
³ Oh! I have a new book about Anthurium breeding! (Breeding Anthuriums in Hawaii, Haruyuki Kamemoto and Adelheid R. Kuehnle, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1996, $7.81 used on Amazon and that included shipping) And if you think there are not eventually going to be blog posts about the things I am learning from the book, you are hilariously mistaken.

An Uncharacteristically Upbeat Post

Fungus
Anybody remember that Euphorbia fungus I've been having trouble with since forever? The one that makes the fuzzy white patches on Euphorbia, Pedilanthus, and Synadenium but not on anything else, and that doesn't go away after being sprayed with rubbing alcohol, peroxide, copper sulfate, or chlorothalonil? This stuff?

I think I may have figured out how to get rid of it. The secret might be strong sprays of tap water. Damaged leaves stay damaged, of course, but they don't grow new patches of fungus. I hadn't tried this previously, because usually the equation is fungus + water = more fungus. In fact, I'd been taking extra care not to get water on the affected plants. The only reason I ever tried spraying the plants with water was because I'd gotten so discouraged that I gave up on ever stopping it, so I figured I may as well make it worse so I could justify throwing the plants out.

Rain doesn't work, though: the fungus got worse on the plants that were outside last summer. Must be the chlorine?

The only plants that washing doesn't seem to be adequate for are the Pedilanthuses. Of the three I still have (P. tithymaloides, P. 'Silver Star,' and P. 'Jurassic Park 2'), 'Jurassic Park 2' seems to be cured, 'Silver Star' might or might not be -- it's hard to tell, because there was a lot of leaf damage, and the leaf damage is the same color as the fungus itself -- and P. tithymaloides is still having problems.


Hippeastrum
The Hippeastrum seedling I got three years ago from Kenneth Moore is 1) going to bloom, and 2) offsetting. I'm not sure I even knew that Hippeastrums made offsets before this; I never paid that much attention to the genus because I never thought I was going to have one.

The flower won't be anything terribly exotic; it's either 'Red Lion' x self or 'Red Lion' x 'Apple Blossom.' But it'll still be my first, which is special enough. And amaryllis blooms are pretty, even when they're ordinary.


Clivia
The rumors about Clivia are true. I'd started to think all the talk about Clivia offsets was some kind of elaborate prank aimed at me, to make me feel bad because mine weren't making any. But behold! (And it only took five and a half years!)

So this is a thing that can happen as well.


Araucaria
But the fun doesn't stop there! I also have an Araucaria seedling! (It's less blurry in person.)

Is it an interesting Araucaria seedling? Well no, not yet. But someday. The story is, I bought three seeds of A. bidwillii from seedman.com last September.¹

I started them on 17 September 2013. I got a clear plastic jar (formerly a Costco bulk pretzel container), put in about 2 or 3 inches of damp soil, then set the seeds on top, then added another inch of soil and sealed the top.

In retrospect, I wish I had used vermiculite, because there's a raging fungus gnat problem in the container now. Washing the seeds first might have been a good idea as well, since I've had bugs come in with previous seedman.com purchases. (Only springtails, but if washing might have prevented that, then washing would have been a good idea.) But in any case. They usually take 1-2 months to germinate, but can take up to 18 months to germinate, I've heard, so this may be a long-term dirt-filled pretzel jar.

And here's a bonus picture of my first Araucaria bidwillii, from last September:

In that photo, it's about six and a half years old, plus however old it was when I bought it.²

The advice I see on-line says I should move the seedling to its own pot as soon as it's large enough to be handled.³ I'm not sure how large that is, but the current plan is to give it its own pot once it starts growing some true leaves: currently it's just a short, bumpy stick. If that sounds wrong to anybody, please leave a comment. For that matter, leave a comment if it sounds right, too.


Coffea
Finally, I've seen the first germination from this year's round of Coffea seedlings:

That took a little less than two months to sprout. For this one, I used soil instead of vermiculite, and I didn't soak it in water for 24 hours after harvest, so I hadn't been sure it would do anything. But it seems the pre-drying soak is optional, and it doesn't matter tremendously what you try to germinate them in. For the moment, it's just this one pot, the six seedlings from last year's batch, and the parent plant (which is doing terribly and I don't know why⁴) but I started a pretzel container full of vermiculite and seeds⁵ on January 15, and have two more batches of seeds to sow (95 seeds next week, and 205 seeds in early March), so this is just a harbinger of the coming Coffea stampede.

Bonus picture of the remaining plants from last year's crop:

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¹ $5.95 plus shipping. That was the same order as the Strelitzia junceas (5 seeds for $2.95; previously), and I also got seeds of Calathea lutea (10/$3.95). Both Strelitzia and Calathea are supposed to be irregular germinators, but it may be time to give up on the Calatheas: they take a lot of space that could be going to Anthurium seedlings, and so far none of the ten have done anything. I can be pretty patient when it comes to waiting for plants to do things, so I'm not planning to throw them out immediately, but . . . well, they should start thinking about germinating, if they know what's good for them.
² There is not a lot of information available about how fast A. bidwillii grows once it's germinated, but based on this picture from Wikimedia Commons, I'm guessing mine was barely more than a year old when I bought it. My earliest photo is from October 2007, ten months after the purchase, when it looked like:

Best guess: the plant is now between 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 years old.
³ For example: " As soon as they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots. The plants have a rather sparse root system and are best placed in their final positions as soon as possible." (From here.) The part about the roots seems correct, at least:

⁴ My best guesses: cold (it's in the plant room, on the floor, and the plant room floor has been very chilly, several times, because of the periodic blasts of cold this winter), dry (it dries out a lot faster than it used to, and probably needs a larger pot), and maybe hot, dry air (the only place big enough to put it is also pretty close to the plant room heater). There's a second plant in the pot, maybe half the size of the big one, and it seems to be doing fine, though, so none of the explanations completely make sense.
⁵ And I do mean full: 149 seeds. The pretzel jars aren't huge -- about 8-10 inches / 20-25 cm in diameter? -- so the seeds are packed in there pretty tightly.

Scenes From the Garage

What a terrible time of year this is. So warm out (71, 80, and 87 F on Sun/Mon/Tue, which is 22, 27 and 31 C, for those of you in civilized countries) that I feel stupid if I don't have the plants outside, because obviously they'd enjoy themselves, but too cold at night to leave them there, so I have to haul them all back in the house or into the garage or something, then drag them back out again in the morning. Except last night I did leave them outside (forecast was for a low of 62F/17C), so they were probably all destroyed by a freak hail storm or something. (I'll add that to the end of the post, if the hail thing happened.)

Starting tonight, it's going to turn cold again, so all the plants that I've been carefully moving around every hour so they don't sunburn are going to have to come back inside and live in their old spots again for four or five days. There are obviously worse things than having to move lots of plants around, but I can't remember what any of them are, because I'm exhausted from moving lots of plants around.

About 75% of that last sentence isn't even a joke.

Therefore, today's post will be a lazy and poorly-photographed assemblage of things I've seen when transporting the plants from place to place.

First up is the big Coffea, which is . . . big.

Also a Coffea.

It's spent a long time in the corner of the plant room. This is because that's pretty much the only place in the house where it would fit, and it's done nicely there. But I decided I wanted to give it a chance to spend a summer outside for the first time since I bought it in December 2006, so I wrestled it out of the corner and brought it outside and stood it up, and, well:

This is an inaccurate picture in two ways. One, the top tier or two of branches got whacked by the ceiling fan or bent against the ceiling or otherwise broken, at some point a day or two after this picture was taken, so the plant is now slightly shorter than this.

The second way the picture is inaccurate is because the plant is more or less upright. That's not unheard of, but it's not been typical lately. Because it's been grown indoors for so long, the stem is weak, and any little breeze will tip it over 60 degrees. For the moment, the precarious-looking wobble is sort of serving a purpose. I don't have any good spots for keeping a plant this tall in total shade, but it's always waving around, so none of the leaves wind up staying in direct sun long enough to burn.

That, or Coffeas are just naturally sunburn-resistant, 'cause it's been fine. I prefer to think that it's the waving around, not natural sunburn resistance, because then that means the waving and bending is a good thing. In any case, I'm hoping that the plant takes this as a sign that it needs to invest in a thicker, sturdier trunk before the summer's over.

Next up, the Aloe harlana, or whatever it is, had started to produce some flower buds before it got moved outside, but they're getting bigger and starting to color up now.

The above picture was taken on Monday; by Tuesday morning, when I got the plant out of the garage, the inflorescence was nearly horizontal. It didn't seem to be creased or broken, so the flowers might still open, but I don't have an explanation for the sudden change, so I'm a little concerned. If the flowers open regardless, I'll be pleased.

If they open and I get to see a hummingbird, I'll be more pleased, but so far since we moved, I've gotten an average of one hummingbird sighting per year, and I'd just as soon not use mine up so early and then have nothing to look forward to.

Next. Have I told you lately how much I love my Araucaria bidwillii? 'Cause I do. It's been around long enough now that I'm actually starting to think of it as a friend. Even by normal plant-personification standards (or, you know, "normal" plant-personification standards), that's a bit much. I guess it's true, what Bob Dylan said: the plants are my friends; they're blowing in the wind.

Puns aside, the A. bidwillii is putting on a bunch of new growth all of a sudden. Some combination, no doubt, of the longer days, brighter light, better air circulation, and increased root room -- I repotted it on 11 April.

Not all of the news is good. The goddamned fungus on the Euphorbias is not getting any better, despite pretty liberal application of chlorothalonil, and I'm alternating between rage and despair about that whole situation. (I suppose it's probably too early to give up just yet, though.) Also I was throwing the tennis ball for Sheba on Monday and mis-aimed it into the plants. Blew some leaves off of the big Agave victoriae-reginae, as well as partly pulping some of the weaker Aloes, which was a bummer. But these things will happen. And I've learned some sort of valuable lesson, I'm almost certain.

They Grow Up So Fast, Part 4

Feeling kinda meh the last few days (long story), and there isn't much new stuff going on with the plants at the moment, and I've spent a lot of the last week or so being distracted by the SCP Foundation,¹ so not a lot to talk about.²

I have, however, noticed that some of my plants have grown significantly, and took pictures of them, so we can talk about that, perhaps. Or I can at least post pictures and say, Look! Look how they've grown significantly!

So first up is Vriesea imperialis, which started out as a tiny offset from a plant at work in 2008:

July 2008. 3" (8 cm) pot.
It grew very, very slowly, for a very, very long time, to the point where I wondered if it was worth trying to grow indoors at all, but has picked up speed lately. It still isn't as big as the parent plant was, but it's gotten large enough that it seems plausible that it might get there someday.

May 2012. 6" (15 cm) pot.
I'd almost sort of prefer that it didn't get as big as the parent, 'cause the parent was huge, but that's another issue entirely.

Up second, the Ficus maclellandii. It was always sort of a big plant --

Oct 2007. 6" (15 cm) pot. I realize it's hard to get a sense of the size from this photo; it's the earliest picture I have.
-- but it's become downright unmanageable since it got up-potted. Part of that was my fault, for putting it in a clay pot, but I think it the only pot I had in the right size when I decided to up-pot. Something like that.

May 2012. 14" (36 cm) pot.
Finally, I can't believe I haven't shown you the Araucaria bidwillii before this. I guess I had plenty of photos from different times in its profile, but still: that's been a while ago. The plant outgrew its spot in the plant room, so I moved it outside for the summer, and I realized while looking at it out there how much bigger it is than it used to be.

Oct 2007. 4" (10 cm) pot.
I really had no idea it would grow as fast as it has, back when I first got it, though I'm pleased that it does.

May 2012. 8" (20 cm) pot.
Don't know where I'm going to put it in the fall. The unfortunate part about having lots of plants that are doing well and getting bigger is that they take up more and more space. If the house grew at the same rate, we'd be fine. But.

Perhaps I should do an SCP write-up about a house that somehow (telepathically?) causes its residents to fill with hundreds of plants over a number of years until all their time is consumed with plant-tending and -propagating and then they collapse of exhaustion.

Probably too over the top to be believable, though.

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¹ Which is a group-written, fictional, wiki-type website with the premise that it contains the internal files of an organization called the SCP Foundation. "SCP" stands for "Secure, Contain, and Protect," and the files refer to objects, locations, people, other organisms, and the occasional really odd thing with "anomalous" properties. (Both the organization and the objects it contains are called "SCP," which is confusing.)
It's more or less a site for horror-fiction. I, inexplicably, have a high tolerance for scary stuff so I don't find most of it particularly freaksome, but some people report nightmares and stuff so YMMV. There's a whole complicated backstory for how the organization came into being (actually, there are several -- part of the fun is having no official canon as to what is "true" in the SCP universe and what's not), which is what I find most interesting, personally.
      As for individual files of interest, my definite personal favorite is the possibly-sentient, probably-trans-dimensional Japanese vending machine (and definitely also read the Experiment Log for SCP-261). Similar, also-good SCPs with extended experiment logs include The Clockworks and The Coffee Machine.
      For the more straightforward creepy horror stuff, my personal introduction to the site was via The Stairwell, which is pretty good. I Am a Toaster is both riotously funny (to me) and creepy as hell. The Sculpture was the original SCP, and still wildly popular, though I think they've done better stories since.
      I should warn that several of the SCP descriptions and photos are unimaginably squicky, The Mother of Them All and the photo for Hard-to-Destroy Reptile being way up there. The site also has an unfortunate tendency to use rape as the go-to worst thing possible, when they want to emphasize that a particular SCP is something really, really bad, as in Special Personnel Requirements and Expunged Data Released (the latter is also highly squicky), so you may not want to bother checking out the whole site for that reason. (I'm pretty sure the vending machine, clockworks, and coffee machine are all rape-free, though.)
      My interest is partially just because it's a whole lot of decent, unpredictable, easily available short fiction to read, and I get bored a lot, and partly because once I figured out how the site worked, I decided I really, really wanted to write a plant-related SCP. (They already have several, of varying quality and realism; my favorites are probably The Bladewood Grove, The Greenhouse, The Serrated Lawn, and Seed Bead. As you might expect from a horror-driven site, there's a strong tendency toward plants that are sharp and hurt people, and carnivorous, particularly human-eating, plants. Which are certainly scary things, but I think they're leaving a lot of territory unexplored.^a)
      I sort of have an idea for my own SCP, after thinking about it for a couple weeks, but it's not realistic enough to post here, and the group over there pride themselves on being incredibly harsh on submissions, particularly with respect to any ideas that have previously been used in any SCP ever (and at ~1200 SCPs, plus several that were deleted for being sucky, that's a lot of back material to be familiar with), so I may not want to put myself through that. We'll see.
      But so that's part of what I've been doing lately.
      ^a But then, considering what happens when they steer clear of the carnivorous and impossibly sharp plants (examples: 757, 843, 822, 1180), perhaps we don't want to encourage them to stray too far from the formula.
² (Besides the SCP Foundation, obviously.)

List: Houseplants Native to the Southern Pacific Ocean

One of the things I did in October / November that led me to the point of burnout by November / December was, I spent a lot of time trying to track down the native ranges for a bunch of different houseplants. This was a lot more complicated than it might sound, because there doesn't seem to be any central authority for these sorts of questions, so I had to refer to multiple sources of information, and different sources occasionally contradict one another, and on occasion it's tough to find any source that will hazard a guess at all, so the whole thing wound up taking a good chunk out of my November and I'm not even confident that the information I gathered is correct. I mean, it should be mostly correct, but there will be occasional errors. So I probably won't be any more error-prone than any other sources, but it may be important to keep in mind that this list, and the others like it, may contain errors, so you shouldn't use it for any work where getting a plant's native range wrong might result in someone's death. For example.

The main source of information, incidentally, was GRIN, which is awkward to use and woefully deficient about certain genera of plants, but which at least tries to provide range information for most of the plants it does cover. I'm mostly using their method of dividing up the globe, as well. GRIN has differing categories for the Southwest Pacific (#45 on the map below) and the South Central Pacific (#44) --

Image credit: GRIN.
-- which I'm combining because I only found two houseplants from the South Central Pacific, so I can't make a South Central post, so I may as well combine Southwest and South Central. What that means is, we're talking about the mess of little islands to the southeast of Papua New Guinea and northeast of Australia, places like Fiji, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Samoa and American Samoa, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and all those other little places I'd heard of before but never really bothered to locate on a map.¹

But now I have! Map from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, by way of Voice of America.
This is not a particularly good part of the planet to hunt for possible houseplants; out of a 622-plant list, only 23 (3.7%) come from this part of the globe, and only a handful are exclusive: most were also found in India, China, Indo-China, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, or some combination thereof.

Other sources of the information consulted for this list and the ones to follow, in descending order of trustworthiness: Plant List, biodiversityexplorer.org (not linked because I've been unable to connect to it and am unsure if it still exists), general Google searches, Wikipedia, Tropicos,² and possibly a few other places I can't remember and didn't write down. I've tried to select plants for the photos section that I'm most confident are native to the South Pacific, leaving the ones I'm less certain about for the end of the post.

The whole native-ranges project should be good for another twenty or so posts like this, though obviously the whole globe won't be represented. Very few houseplants come from Siberia, for example.³

Here we go.

Araucaria heterophylla (Norfolk Island pine) is found exclusively on Norfolk Island,⁴ which is located a bit to the south of most of the other plants on this list. GRIN considers Norfolk Island to be part of Australia, not part of the Southwest Pacific, but Norfolk Island surely has more in common with New Caledonia than it does with Australia, so I'm saying it belongs here.

Breynia disticha (snowbush), green revert of the variegated cv. 'Roseo-Picta.' This one is from New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and nowhere else.

Codiaeum variegatum (croton), variety 'Petra.' Crotons have a broader distribution than Breynia, but it's still centered on the right general area: Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, northeastern Australia (specifically Queensland), plus the Southwest Pacific islands of Fiji and Vanuatu.

Epipremnum aureum (pothos), officially belongs to the South Central Pacific, according to GRIN, because it's native to French Polynesia, which is to the east of most of the other plants under discussion. Close enough, though.

Murraya paniculata (orange jasmine) has a fairly broad range, extending as far west as India, north to China and Taiwan, south through Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia, and east to the Northern Marianas islands in the Northwest Pacific. Also the islands of New Caledonia and Vanuatu, in the Southwest Pacific.

Pandanus veitchii (probably a synonym for P. tectorius? Common name is screw pine). Nobody seems to have a terribly good idea where P. veitchii came from, but GRIN says Indonesia and the Philippines, south through Papua New Guinea into eastern Queensland (NE Australia), then throughout the Pacific Ocean as far north and east as Hawaii. The germane islands for this list are New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, and Vanuatu.

Phaius tankervillae (nun orchid) can be found in Fiji and New Caledonia, but also north to China, west to India and Sri Lanka, and south to Australia. The photo isn't of P. tankervillae (it's P. Microburst Octoberfest), and I was unable to locate the parentage information for P. Microburst Octoberfest, but P. tankervillae is the most widely cultivated Phaius, so PMO probably includes tankervillae genes, and as near as I could determine, tankervillae also has one of the larger native ranges, so the odds are that the picture's fairly representative of the species even if it's not actually the species. Especially since it's not a particularly good picture anyway. (It was all I had showing both blooms and foliage.)

Polyscias fruticosa. (ming aralia) Mostly a Southeast Asia species: it's found in Indo-China (Cambodia, Vietnam), northward to China, west to India, and south to Indonesia. Fiji, in the Southwest Pacific, is at the southern tip of its range.

Dizygotheca (now Schefflera) elegantissima (false aralia). Finally another one that's definitely on this list: S. elegantissima is exclusively native to New Caledonia.

Scyphularia pycnocarpa (possum-tail fern) is only found on Fiji.
Now for the recommendations.

I would enthusiastically recommend Pandanus veitchii, because once established they're incredibly easy to grow. (I have lost a couple offsets to unknown causes before, but they're usually easy to establish, too.) Screw pines are too big and prickly to be suitable for everybody, but if you don't mind big and prickly then you should track one down. They don't seem to be bothered by dry air, as far as I can tell they're pretty flexible about watering, I have yet to see any bugs attack them,⁵ and they'll stay alive in a wide range of light conditions, though some sun is helpful.

Epipremnum aureum and I have had some missteps in the past: specifically, I've lost plants after repotting, more than once, and I'm not sure why. They do well for almost everybody else, though, and I've been doing better with mine for the last couple years. Pothos is likewise fairly flexible about water, light, and humidity, and not overly bothered by any pests.

After those two, it becomes more or less impossible to choose. I adore Auraucaria heterophylla, Breynia disticha, and Murraya paniculata, for differing reasons: Araucaria has been remarkably easy for me, and is one of the plants I've had the longest, though spider mites can occasionally be a problem, and it will do best in a cool, humid, and bright spot without direct sun. Breynia disticha is likewise slightly prone to spider mites, and will drop leaves if allowed to dry out too much, but it's flexible about light, temperature, and humidity, and grows gratifyingly fast. Murraya paniculata will produce lots of small white flowers with a heavy fragrance resembling orange blossoms, which can self-pollinate to form small inedible red fruits. It has no particular pest problems and is very tolerant of indoor conditions, but needs bright light, lots of water, and abundant fertilizer to grow well.

⁶

The anti-recommend is Codiaeum variegatum, because the anti-recommend is always Codiaeum variegatum. If you get a nice specimen, in a suitable (very bright, warm) spot, that doesn't have spider mites to begin with, and you don't bring home any other plants that might have mites: then you have a shot, but if you bring in other plants very often or buy your plant from a place that has spider mites anywhere on the premises, I can pretty much guarantee that your plant is eventually going to get covered in mites, defoliate, and die. I don't even consider buying Codiaeums anymore, and haven't for years.

Not pictured:

• Carmona species (fukien tea) are sometimes sold as bonsai specimens. They're native from Northern Australia, northward through Indonesia and Indo-China, up as far as China and Japan. They go as far west as India and Sri Lanka, and as far east as the Solomon Islands. I've never tried growing one (bonsai, even the fakey mass-produced plants sold as bonsai, are always out of my price range), and suspect them of being difficult besides,⁷ but the foliage has a strange/wonderful astringent smell to it.
• Castanospermum australe (lucky bean plant) is one of those plants I have yet to see in person, though I keep hearing about them from elsewhere. Their native range is small: just Queensland (NE Australia), New Caledonia, and Vanuatu. I have no idea what they're like as houseplants.
• I've never grown a Cocos nucifera (coconut palm); we tried sprouting one from a coconut at work once, but nothing happened, and I think we brought one in to sell once as well, but it sold too quickly for me to get much of a feel for how it worked. I understand they're supposed to be fairly difficult, requiring a lot of light, water, and warmth. Their native range is from Indonesia, south and east through Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, Australia, and Vanuatu, though they've been introduced to basically every tropical habitat in the world.
• Ficus benjamina (ficus tree) can be found on the Solomon Islands, though it has a range extending north as far as China and Taiwan, west as far as India, and south as far as Australia. Like Polyscias fruticosa, they can alarm the unprepared, but are pretty good houseplants for anyone who can give them consistent care.
• Ficus microcarpa (Chinese banyan). Pretty much the same range as F. benjamina, though its range extends a bit further to the west and north. The significant part of the range for this list are New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands. They're a little less prone to panic defoliation than F. benjamina, though I've had waaaaaaay more trouble with spider mites on my F. microcarpas than I ever dreamed of with my F. benjaminas, so I suppose it's a tradeoff.
• Several somewhat obscure Hoya species are from the South Pacific as well, according to hoyor.net; the relevant species are H. affinis, attenuata, australis, barrackii, betchei, bicarnata, chlorantha, cominsii, crassior, diptera, dodecatheiflora, filiformis, guppyi, inconspicua, intermedia, limoniaca, marginata, megalantha, naumanii, neocaledonica, neoebudica, pilosa, pubescens, pycnophylla, schneei, trukensis, and vitiensis. I don't know what any of them are like to grow indoors.
• Polyscias crispata (also P. cumingiana) also comes from the whole Indonesia / Malaysia / Papua New Guinea / Philippines area, plus New Caledonia. I assume its care is similar to that for P. fruticosa, though I've never grown one.
• Solenostemon scutellarioides (more correctly Plectranthus scutellarioides; less correctly Coleus blumei -- most people just call it coleus) has a wide range from China to India in the north, to the northern coast of Australia in the south, including basically everything in between, as well as the Solomon Islands. It's not difficult indoors exactly, but it wants to be huge, grows really fast, can't dry out for long, and needs a completely unreasonable amount of light. Hard to keep up with; I prefer to treat mine as outdoor plants that just have to come inside occasionally for six-month stretches.
• Spathoglottis species (ground orchids) are from diverse habitats within the India / China / Australia / South Pacific rectangle that I'm getting tired of typing out. S. plicata can be found in New Caledonia, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, and Tonga. I don't know whether they make good houseplants.

Borderline cases:

• GRIN basically punted on the question of where Acalypha wilkesiana (beefsteak plant, copperleaf) is from. They think "Oceania," which is the general area we're considering, but it's so widely cultivated that the actual origin is unclear. I've never grown Acalypha wilkesiana, since it looks to me like another fast-growing, sun-needing plant like coleus, and I have enough trouble with coleus.
• I wasn't sure whether to include Didymochlaena truncatula (mahogany fern) on the list or not, because GRIN says that it's basically from everywhere. All of tropical Africa, including South Africa and Madagascar, the whole India / Indo-China / Indonesia / Philippines area we've been talking about with everything else in this post (including, relevantly, Fiji), Southern Mexico, and most of South and Central America. This seemed . . . implausible. I mean, it's a fern, for fuck's sakes, how is it going to get from South Africa to Fiji? But other sites backed GRIN up on the claim, so I guess it could be true. My personal experience is that it makes a lousy houseplant: it's way too touchy about missed waterings for this particular house, and consequently mine pretty much always looks like crap. I do enjoy saying Didymochlaena, though.
• Medinilla cvv. is another questionable inclusion; not only do I suspect most Medinillas being grown indoors are probably man-made hybrids, I suspect that almost no Medinillas are being grown indoors. Not for very long, in any case. (They don't even do terribly well in the ex-job's greenhouse.) They seem to be pretty common in Indonesia and the Philippines, and GRIN lists at least one species as being from Fiji.
• Musa spp. (banana) is another weird case: the genus is generally within the India / China / Australia / South Pacific rectangle, but they're also widely cultivated and naturalized, so they're pretty certain that some Musa species are from the South Pacific, but I didn't care enough to want to sort through the tangle of species and ranges to figure out which. There's also been some hybridizing going on, too, so the question may be moot for some ornamental types. I have mixed feelings about them as houseplants: mine's been less trouble than I was expecting when I bought it, and has done much much better in the last year than it did when it first arrived, but they're still not a plant I'd recommend to people.
• The natural range of Paphiopedilums (slipper orchids) stretches from northeast India, east and south through Indo-China (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc.), Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Southwestern Pacific, though I don't know specifically which islands. (GRIN was unhelpful on this one.) Virtually all commercially-available paphs are man-made hybrids, though, so this may not be relevant. As for what they're like as houseplants, well, they like to tease me:⁸ I don't know how they act for other people.
• Spathiphyllum species (peace lilies) are primarily from Southern Mexico, southward through Central and South America,⁹ but GRIN swears that there are a few Asian species, and that at least one can be found in the Solomon Islands. This may not be relevant, since I'm pretty sure any peace lilies you can pick up in a store are going to be man-made hybrids anyway, but I suppose it meets the minimum criteria for inclusion, so hey, here it is. They make fine, if generally uninspiring, houseplants.

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¹ Sorry, Pacific Islanders. It's not personal, it's just that there are so many little islands. If it makes you feel any better, I could probably locate some of them correctly now, after doing this post.
² Tropicos is tricky, because the locations they name are not necessarily locations where the specimens were actually collected, and it took me a while to figure this out. It's frequently unclear whether the location given is the location where the description was published, where the plant was collected, where a cultivated specimen has been grown, etc. Consequently, I tried to use Tropicos only in cases where there was nothing to be found anywhere else. It's possible that this is just me being stupid, and that there's a perfectly clear reference somewhere on Tropicos that will give me exactly the information I want, but it's the least user-friendly of any of the plant reference sources I consulted.
³ I don't think any of the zones on the map actually came up as having zero houseplant species in them, but that's largely because a few genera are ridiculously widespread: for example, Origanum (oregano), Goodyera (a genus of orchids, containing a few tropical species which are sometimes given the common name jewel orchids), and Drosera (sundews) all came up as being present in Siberia. Which no doubt there are species representing all three in Siberia, but these are almost certainly not the species people try to grow indoors.
⁴ (But it's not a pine.)
⁵ Though when I had one outside a couple summers ago, something did cut circular bites out of a couple leaves. None of the usual indoor pests seem terribly fond of Pandanus, though.
⁶ I'd also like to say that I think the difficulty of Polyscias fruticosa is often overstated on-line. Much like Ficus benjamina, it drops leaves when conditions change in ways it doesn't like. People often see this and panic, thinking that the plant is desperately unhappy, so they try to fix it with more water (because watering is the only thing most people know to do with plants), which leads to other problems. But once in a suitable location (normal indoor temperatures, filtered sun or bright indirect light) and given consistent care, they're really not nearly as scary as people think. One caveat: they are somewhat attractive to spider mites. I've never had that problem with my personal plant, but the plants at work sometimes had trouble.
⁷ They had a tendency to defoliate on us at work; I never figured out what that was about, but they almost always did it before they sold, so then we had a bunch of naked pretend bonsai sitting around.
⁸ "Look, look, I have roots! Whoops, now I don't! Hey, now I have roots again! Oh, never mind! Hooray, roots! Ha: tricked you!" The most frustrating thing about my paph is not that it's unhappy with me, it's that it won't just fucking die already. I know it wants to; I'd like to see it happen myself, yet it refuses to just give up and do it. If it survives to spring (it probably will), I'm going to mail it off to some nice PATSP reader via contest or something, 'cause this is getting ridiculous.
⁹ SPOILER: basically everything is from Central and South America. I expected most houseplants would be from Southeast Asia, but no: if it's succulent, it's from South Africa or Northern Mexico, and if it's not, then it's from Central or South America, particularly Brazil. Nobody would even bother growing houseplants, if we lived in a South-America-less alternate universe. That's how big of a deal South America is.

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 3.5 and 3.6

Rules and Stuff
1) It's probably possible to vote more than once per poll, but please don't. If I believe that someone is voting repeatedly, I will throw out those results, repost the poll, and seriously question that person's priorities.
2) If you want to link to a poll on Twitter / Facebook / your blog / whatever and encourage your friends to come and pump up the support for your favorite plants, you are encouraged to do so.
3) You are also encouraged to leave comments on Rumble posts, if so moved.
4) All photos will enlarge if opened in a separate window/tab.
5) You can choose which plant is "best" according to whatever criteria you decide for yourself. My personal process is a bit convoluted.¹
6) All polls will be open for three days.

The results for matches 2.25 to 2.28:

Adenium obesum scored a solid victory over Zamioculcas zamiifolia in match 2.25, winning by 61 to 43.
Ficus benjamina lost match 2.26 to Haworthia spp. by a similar margin (40 to 66).
Adenium obesum will now face Haworthia spp. in match 3.13; voting begins October 21.

It looked like Cycas revoluta had match 2.27 all sewn up after about the first 24 hours of voting, but Tradescantia zebrina surged a bit in the last two days. Tradescantia still lost, but it was close: 56 to 50.
The self-heading Philodendrons beat Tillandsia cyanea in round 2.28, 54 to 45.

Cycas revoluta goes up against the self-heading Philodendrons in match 3.14 (the Pi Match!), also on October 21.

And now, today's third-round excitement:

Match 3.5
Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis cvv. (moth orchid) vs. Araucaria heterophylla (norfolk island pine)

(All unidentified Phalaenopsis cvv.)

Top: young Araucaria heterophylla. Bottom: mature A. heterophylla.





Match 3.6
Cereus peruvianus (peruvian apple cactus) vs. Hoya carnosa cvv. (wax plant)

L-R: Cereus peruvianus monstrose, C. peruvianus, C. peruvianus 'Spiralis.'

Clockwise from top left: Hoya carnosa 'Krimson Princess,' 'Chelsea,' all-green revert of 'Krimson Princess,' 'Krimson Queen.'





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¹ I'm deciding according to a hypothetical situation in which all of my houseplants are gone, as are all the other houseplants of the world, except for one producer/supplier/retailer. Said person is offering to restock me with one or the other of the plants in question but refuses to give me both. Which one would I choose?

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 2.9-2.12

Rules and Stuff
1) It's probably possible to vote more than once per poll, but please don't. If I believe that someone is voting repeatedly, I will throw out those results, repost the poll, and seriously question that person's priorities.
2) If you want to link to a poll on Twitter / Facebook / your blog / whatever and encourage your friends to come and pump up the support for your favorite plants, you are encouraged to do so.
3) You are also encouraged to leave comments on Rumble posts, if so moved.
4) All photos will enlarge if opened in a separate window/tab.
5) You can choose which plant is "best" according to whatever criteria you decide for yourself. My personal process is a bit convoluted.¹
6) All polls will be open for three days.

Winners and losers for matches 1.57 to 1.60:

In match 1.57, Aeonium spp. defeated Aphelandra squarrosa, 71 to 28. I wasn't surprised by the winner, but I was surprised that it wasn't even close.
Tradescantia spathacea initially led match 1.58, but Euphorbia milii came from behind to win the battle, 67 to 33.

Aeonium spp. will face Euphorbia milii in match 2.29, on 14 October.

Match 1.59 was a real nail-biter, with each contender leading more than once, but Tillandsia spp. (air plants) was ahead when it counted, beating Philodendron bipinnatifidum and P. xanadu 52 to 46.
Dieffenbachia cvv. blew past Pilea cadierei to win match 1.60 by a score of 66 to 28.

Tillandsia spp. (air plants) and Dieffenbachia will battle to reach the third round on 14 October, in match 2.30.

Today's bouts:

Match 2.9
Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis cvv. (moth orchid) vs. Monstera deliciosa (swiss cheese philodendron)

(All unidentified Phalaenopsis cvv.)

Clockwise from top left: close-up of Monstera deliciosa leaf, M. deliciosa 'Cheesecake,' mature plant at the Quad City Botanical Gardens, M. deliciosa 'Cheesecake.'





Match 2.10
Sansevieria cylindrica (wisdom horns) vs. Araucaria heterophylla (norfolk island pine)

Clockwise from top: Sansevieria cylindrica, S. cylindrica flowers, cutesy braided S. cylindrica.

Top: young Araucaria heterophylla. Bottom: mature A. heterophylla.




Match 2.11
Dracaena marginata cvv. (madagascar dragon tree) vs. Cereus peruvianus (peruvian apple cactus)

(L-R:) Dracaena marginata, D. marginata 'Colorama,' D. marginata 'Bicolor.'

L-R: Cereus peruvianus monstrose, C. peruvianus, C. peruvianus 'Spiralis.'





Match 2.12
Hoya carnosa cvv. (wax plant) vs. Maranta leuconeura cvv. (prayer plant)

Clockwise from top left: Hoya carnosa 'Krimson Princess,' 'Chelsea,' all-green revert of 'Krimson Princess,' 'Krimson Queen.'

Top: Maranta leuconeura 'Marisela.' Bottom: M. leuconeura var. kerchoveana.





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¹ I'm deciding according to a hypothetical situation in which all of my houseplants are gone, as are all the other houseplants of the world, except for one producer/supplier/retailer. Said person is offering to restock me with one or the other of the plants in question but refuses to give me both. Which one would I choose?