List: Missing From Retail, Part 1 of 5

I've mentioned this phenomenon before, in the profile for Pandanus spp. The reason it's on my mind again is, I bought a used houseplant book at a consignment store a few weeks ago, and it's got a lot of plants in there I'd never even heard of, which reminded me that I'd wanted to talk about this.

Since these are all plants I've never or rarely seen before, I don't have photos for a lot of them. When I have one, I've used my own photo; otherwise, I've resorted to Wikimedia Commons or just gone without.

I am especially interested in speculation about why I don't see them for sale as houseplants, so if you see one on this list that you've grown and think you might have insight, leave a comment. (Some possible explanations: small window of attractiveness, poorly adapted to indoor conditions, low tolerance for shipping, prohibitively expensive to produce because of slow growth, replaced by a better plant with similar qualities.)

The five books I'm using are:

Crockett, James Underwood. Crockett's Indoor Garden. Little, Brown and Co., Boston MA / Toronto ON, 1978.
Kramer, Jack. The Illustrated Guide to Flowering Houseplants. Peerage Books, London, 1985.
Powell, Charles C. and Donald M. Vining. Ortho's Complete Guide to Successful Houseplants. Chevron Chemical Co., San Francisco CA, 1984.
Stuckey, Maggie. The Houseplant Encyclopedia. Doubleday Direct, Inc., Garden City NY, 1993.
Griffith, Lynn P., Jr. Tropical Foliage Plants: A Grower's Guide. Ball Publishing, Batavia IL, 1998.

This will be a five-part post, eventually. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)

Achimenes erecta. Photo by Andel Früh, from Wikimedia Commons.
I know there are gesneriad enthusiasts out there who grow Achimenes cvv. (Cupid's bower, hot water plant) indoors, but it appears that you can't grow them until you've grown several other gesneriads first. It seems obvious enough that people would buy them in stores if they saw them for sale, so the issue has to be one of production (not cost-effective to propagate), distribution (don't ship well), or long-term prospects (don't remain attractive long enough in stores for retailers to make any money off of them). No idea which, but I bet there are readers who'll have a guess.


Allamanda cathartica 'Williamsii.' (My picture.)
Allamanda cathartica (golden trumpet) is mentioned in a few of the books, and I've seen them for sale intermittently at the ex-job, but I'm not aware of anyone actually growing one indoors, nor have I ever tried it myself. My guess, based on the behavior of the ones at the ex-job, is that they are probably too fussy and demanding to do well outside of a greenhouse.

Anguloa clowesii. Photo by Orchi, from Wikimedia Commons.
I had never even heard of Anguloa spp. (tulip orchid) before I bought the Kramer book, but they sound fucking perfect, as orchids go. Large green leaves, fragrant blooms (not sure about A. clowesii above, but wikiposedly some or most Anguloa species have cinnamon-scented flowers), "easy to bring into bloom indoors,"¹ etc. And the hybrids are, if anything, even more awesome (check the photo of Anguloa x ruckeri, here). So something must be horribly wrong with them. But what? What could be that terrible? We may never know.


Aspidistra elatior. (My photo.)
I totally get why Aspidistra elatior (cast-iron plant) isn't more widely available: I haven't been happy with mine. All the books go on and on about what an easy plant Aspidistra is, and how if you absolutely can't grow anything else at all, you can grow a cast-iron plant, but: mine has had spider mites a few times, the leaf tips have burnt back pretty severely in the last year or so (in the worst cases, about 1/3 of the leaf is dead), now it has scale, and it doesn't seem to be growing at all. Seriously, I don't know when the last time it produced a new leaf was, but it's been at least a year. And of course when I check the books to see what I've done wrong, all they do is reassure me that it's the world's easiest plant and there's no possible way it could go wrong, which is UNHELPFUL. Add to that the fact that even in good conditions, they're apparently still pretty slow, and neither the leaves nor the flowers are especially flashy, and it's clear why a tropical plant grower might not want to invest in producing them.

That said, they're nevertheless available around here, very occasionally. We had them once or twice at the ex-job, and I've seen them at a couple other places in the area, though only once for each place. We eventually stopped bringing them in at the ex-job, because they always got spider mites right away, plus they were a lot more expensive than similarly-sized plants of other genera, because of the slow growth. So it was one of those deals where it was either going to sell in the first fifteen minutes off the truck, or it was going to get spider mites and find itself shoved under a table until somebody decided it was ugly enough to discard.

Asplenium bulbiferum. Photo by Daderot, from Wikimedia Commons, and is in public domain.
Asplenium bulbiferum (hen and chicken fern, mother spleenwort) seems to have lost a lot of popularity in recent decades. I don't know anything about what it's like to grow A. bulbiferum specifically (I have a vague memory of being told once by somebody that it was difficult), but if it's anything like the other Aspleniums I've attempted,² that's just as well.

I've never seen one for sale. A likely explanation is that it was probably never that commercially viable: plants that self-propagate easily tend to get passed from person to person through informal sales or trades, instead of being bought and sold, and A. bulbiferum produces tiny rootable plantlets at the tips of the fronds.

Aucuba japonica. Photo credit: Digigalos at Wikimedia Commons. Size-adjusted.
Aucuba japonica (gold-dust plant) is the biggest mystery on this list. Four out of the five books mention it, but I have never seen one in person, for sale or not. Nor have I seen any indication that it's an especially problematic plant, either. It's possible that it's just been made redundant by plants like Dracaena surculosa and Codiaeum variegatum 'Gold Dust,' though if that's the case, I'm actually more interested in growing it myself, because I haven't been especially happy with either of those.

Unknown bamboo species. Photo by Tom at The Midwestern Jungle; used by permission. Original photo here.
Real bamboos³ (Bambusa, Chimonobambusa, Phyllostachys, Pleioblastus, Sasaella, and others) get mentioned occasionally in books, and I know at least one blogger who has had a terrifyingly tall real bamboo in his home. That said, I've only ever actually seen one for sale, Pogonantherum paniceum, which was an unsatisfactory experience for me and the plant both. The main obstacle seems to be that they're difficult: this site says that as a group, they need high light, high humidity, and perfectly-timed water. (Certain individual species may vary from the above.) I also understand they're inclined to spider mites, though my Pogonantherum never got old enough to catch spider mites.

Billbergia nutans. (My photo.)
Billbergias seem to be showing up around here a lot more often in the last couple years. We could go to the ex-job and pick me up a Billbergia 'Hallelujah' or 'Borracho' right this second, if necessary. This is still a pretty recent development, though, and as far as I can recall, those are the only two I've seen being sold.

Billbergia nutans (queen's tears) is a great plant, as far as I'm concerned -- it grows fast, propagates easily, is difficult to kill, and produces short-lived but really interesting flowers in the late fall and winter. Unfortunately, all of those characteristics also make it a non-starter, pretty much, in retail. Growing fast and propagating easily means that anybody who has one can have as many as they want (not a particularly collectible plant, from a retail perspective); being difficult to kill means that once you have one, you're likely to continue having one (can't sell replacement plants), and the short-lived flowers means that they're only really appealing to consumers for like twenty minutes out of every year and the rest of the time they just look like a strange big coarse grass.

The other Billbergias are similar, in that they seem to be easy to grow and propagate, though they're colorful enough that we might see them more often as foliage plants in the future. If you do see one for sale: highly recommended.

Brunfelsia pauciflora. Photo by Carl E. Lewis at Wikimedia Commons. Cropped, color adjustment.
Brunfelsia pauciflora (yesterday, today, and tomorrow) is another that's constantly mentioned in the books but that I've never seen for sale. (Or, possibly, I've seen it for sale but not recognized it as such.) They do apparently get kind of big, and the plant doesn't seem especially interesting outside of the flowers, so I could see favoring production of other plants, but the flowering period is apparently long, and obviously people found them worth growing indoors at some point, if all the books keep including them. I'm probably not actually interested in growing it myself, but I would like to know why I've never had the option.

Calceolaria cv. Photo © TopTropicals.com, used in compliance with the non-commercial use guidelines on this page.
I have only seen Calceolaria cvv. (pocketbook flower) being sold at the ex-job, and then only once or twice. The page at Top Tropicals hints at some reasons why this might be the case: they're annuals, they prefer cool temperatures, they're prone to stem rot. If this is in fact the case, then the question about Calceolaria is not, "why don't growers produce them anymore?" but instead "why did houseplant books ever include something so ill-suited to indoor culture in the first place?"

This particular topic doesn't lend itself well to recommendations, but in a perfect world, Anguloa spp. would be easy to grow. (In the actual world, Billbergia are.)


Not pictured:

• Acalypha wilkesiana (copperleaf): sometimes available here as an outdoor annual.
• Acorus spp. (sweet flag): sometimes available as an outdoor annual.
• Aerides spp./cvv. (cat's tail orchid): have never seen.
• Angraecum spp./cvv. (comet orchid): have never seen.
• Astrophytum myriostigma (bishop's cap): seen occasionally, but when I've actually wanted to buy one, they're nowhere to be found.
• Begonia masoniana (iron cross begonia): have seen once.
• Buxus spp. (boxwood): I have a dim recollection of seeing these sold for outdoor use, but I've never seen one sold as a houseplant. Nor, frankly, do I know why anybody would want one as a houseplant: they're pretty plain-looking. They're in all the books anyway, though.

Are any of these widely available where you live? Can you shed any light on why I don't see them in the stores? Are there plants I chatter about at PATSP all the time that you've never seen for sale? Which ones? Etc.

-

¹ Sure, this is almost certainly a lie, because orchids are evil and stupid.^a But still, that's the claim.
^aOh yeah. I went there.
² (A. nidus and A. antiquum)
³ (The "lucky bamboo" in stores is Dracaena sanderiana, and is neither lucky nor bamboo.)

List: Houseplants Native to China

Most of the caveats from this post also apply here: don't use this list for situations in which getting a plant's native range wrong might result in someone's death, I'm mostly relying on GRIN for my information, native ranges aren't always known with any kind of certainty so even the best available information may not be correct, and so forth.

For this one, we're talking about China. There will be a lot of overlap between this list and the ones for Eastern Asia (including Japan), India, Indo-China, Malesia, and Australia, just because China's sort of right in the middle of all those and plants respect political boundaries even less than people do. I apologize for being unable to find a clear public-domain map of the area; I looked for a long time, and found all kinds of stuff, none of it quite what I wanted. Instead, I have to do two different maps, one for the actual political divisions of China itself:


And the other to show where China is relative to the other countries I'll be mentioning (particularly note the locations of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Burma, as there will be a test later¹):

I've circled the Ryukyu Islands because 1) they're going to come up a lot and 2) the original map didn't have them labeled.
Obviously not everybody's going to care about specifically where in the country the different plants come from, but I'm trying to provide the best information I've got for those people who do, 'cause that's the kind of guy I am.


Aglaonema cvv. (shown: cv. 'Emerald Bay') (Chinese evergreen) are usually man-made hybrids, or sports, or sports of hybrids, and consequently don't "really" come from anywhere, but a lot of the species which provided the raw material for the hybrids are from Indo-China (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam) and Malesia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines), with a few as far north as China and as far west as India.


On-line sources disagree about the origin of Aspidistra elatior (cast-iron plant), with some saying it's from Japan and naturalized in China and others saying it's from China and naturalized in Japan. Either way, it's in the right neighborhood for what we're talking about, and GRIN says China but not Japan, so we're going to go with that until I have good reason to change it.


Chirita cvv.² are from within the general India-China-Indonesia triangle; a lot of the plants out there are man-made hybrids (like 'Deco,' shown), but a substantial chunk of the species are from southern China.


Cycas revoluta (sago palm) is from the Fujian province,³ along the southeast coast of China, as well as the Kyushu and Ryukyu Islands in southwestern Japan.


Eriobotrya japonica (loquat) is from the Hubei and Sichuan provinces of China, as well as Taiwan and the Japanese islands of Honshu (the main island of Japan), Kyushu (SW of Honshu), and Shikoku (east of Kyushu and south of Honshu).


Ficus pumila (creeping fig) is found in southeast China.


Pilea peperomioides (Chinese money plant, Chinese missionary plant) is from the Yunnan province of China, which is in the southwest corner of southern China (it borders Burma⁴).


Rhapis excelsa (lady palm) is from southern China and Japan.


The range of Saxifraga stolonifera (strawberry begonia) largely overlaps with that of Ficus pumila, but also extends to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.


Selaginella uncinata (peacock spikemoss, blue spikemoss) is from southern China.

For the recommends:

I love Aglaonemas; I don't do well with the rhizomatous types like A. brevispatha, but all the upright cane-type ags and I get along famously.

Rhapis excelsa tolerates me. I'm not sure if we actually like one another, but it's put up with a lot of crap from me and is still alive and growing.

Saxifraga stolonifera and I are going through an extended rough patch at the moment, but mostly we've gotten along; I suspect that our problems were mostly my fault, not the plant's. We'll see if I can turn that around. Either way, the plant was good enough, for long enough, that I don't have a problem recommending it, even if mine aren't so great at the moment.

The anti-recommend is tough, because I've had bad experiences with the Cycas, Pilea, and Selaginella. Cycas revoluta seems to do well for most people, though (I think my problem was possibly fertilizer-related), so I won't choose it. The Pilea was never happy with me, and even though it lived here for fourteen months, it was declining slowly the entire time. I don't know what happened. I wouldn't recommend it to other people, but it's probably still not as bad as Selaginella, which I don't recommend to anyone who doesn't have an enclosed container of some kind to keep it in, because they're very serious about their moisture levels. Also, I believe I've managed to kill this particular Selaginella despite having an enclosed container for it, which just goes to show you how awesome I am at killing things.

Not pictured:

• Aeschynanthus longicaulis is native to the Yunnan province of China, as well as Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.
• Alocasia spp. (elephant ears) in general are from Indo-China (Laos, Thailand, Vietnam) and Malesia (Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Philippines), but some ranges extend as far north as southern China (Yunnan and Guangdong provinces).
• Alpinia zerumbet (torch ginger) has a fairly wide range, from Japan westward into northeast India and south through Indo-China and Malaysia, which includes the southern provinces of China.
• Ardisia crenata (coral berry) has a pretty substantial range in southeast China, but it's all over the place (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia).
• The GRIN-official range of Asplenium antiquum (bird's-nest fern) is odd and patchy, and sort of runs along the boundary between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea. Beginning at Hong Kong, the range goes northeast through Taiwan and Japan into South Korea. I have no idea why A. antiquum has never been able to make a go of things on the mainland, but this may explain why they always turn on me when I try to grow them here in landlocked Iowa.
• Aucuba japonica (spotted laurel, Japanese laurel, gold-dust plant) is, as the botanical name suggests, primarily from Japan, though there are also some in the Zhejiang province on China's east coast.
• Weirdly, Carmona sp. ("fukien tea") is not from China's Fujian province, at least not according to GRIN, but it is found in the southern part of Guangdong (about as far southeast as one can go in China) and Hainan (as far south as you can go in China). I wonder who fucked that one up. It's also found in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, Taiwan, west to India and Sri Lanka, south as far as Queensland (Australia), and through Indonesia and Malaysia into the Philippines.
• Cissus discolor (begonia vine) is naturally found in south central China, in the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as from India eastward to the Philippines.
• Colocasia spp. (elephant ears) are from south and southeast China, south through Laos and Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. C. esculentum specifically has been so widely cultivated that we don't know where it came from, though it's a pretty safe bet that it originated somewhere in that general area too.
• Cymbidium cvv. are largely hybrids, made by aliens from the seventh moon of the planet Zecuponia III and introduced to earth via an underground network of florists and hobbyists who are actually disguised aliens, secretly observing humanity in anticipation of the day when they can destroy all humans. Why they need to observe first, I have no idea -- apparently they think there's something about us that isn't obvious on the surface.⁵
• GRIN was unusually non-specific about the distribution of Cyrtomium falcatum (holly fern); it looks like it's basically the southeast coast of China, north to Japan and south to Vietnam, plus a population all by itself off in India somewhere.
• Various species of Davallia (rabbit's-foot fern) occur in different spots all over the world; at least one makes its home in southeast China, though I don't know which species.
• Dendrobiums are mostly man-made hybrids at this point, though some species specimens are out there to be had if that's what gets you excited. If you're looking in China, check the south and southeast provinces (Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Guizhou, and all that); otherwise you can find hot Dendrobium action from south China all the way to northern Australia, from India to the Philippines.
• Dioscorea bulbifera (air potato) is another one with a native range that's just a mess: you start in west Africa with Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, and all those along that edge there, including landlocked Burkina Faso, to where the coastline begins to curve to the south at Cameroon and Nigeria, then stop. Go to the east side of Africa and pick up Tanzania, Uganda, and Madagascar, as well as Mauritius and Reunion Island, to the east of Madagascar. Then pick up again at Sri Lanka, just off the southern tip of India, north and east through India, Bhutan, and Nepal, and from there it's all the usual places: south and east China, all of Indo-China, Malesia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines), south into north and west Australia. I don't know if it's safe to assume that there might be other spots that GRIN doesn't mention, that fill in the gaps in the range (like maybe central Africa, if nothing else), or if it really has a bunch of isolated populations like this.
• Of course some Drosera spp. (sundews) are from China; Droseras are basically everywhere. Seriously. I'm not even going to try.
• I'm not going to try to describe the natural range of Ensete and Musa spp. (banana) either. There are both Ensete and Musa species native to China, some as far north as Tibet (Xizang) but mostly in the same southern and eastern part of China that everything else is from.
• Ficus benjamina (weeping fig, ficus tree) has a large range stretching from northeast Australia all the way north to south and east China, west to India, east to the Solomon Islands, and covering everything in between (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Indo-China, etc.).
• Ficus microcarpa (Cuban laurel) has basically the same range as F. benjamina, though it extends a bit further north (to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan) and a bit further to the southeast (Palau, New Caledonia, etc.)
• Gardenia jasminoides (gardenia) is native to the eastern edge of Southeast Asia. From north to south: Japan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam.
• Gloriosa superba (glory lily, gloriosa lily) is another species that splits its time between Africa and Southeast Asia. It only just barely qualifies for this list; GRIN says it's native to a bit of southern Yunnan province (which is in southwest China). Most of its Asian range is south and west of that, though: south through Indo-China and Indonesia, west until you hit India. The African part of the range covers most everything down the east side of Africa (Ethiopia / Somalia / Sudan, Uganda / Kenya / Tanzania, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, and a little ways up the east side, as far as Namibia). There's also supposed to be a little population all by itself in Senegal, which is as far to the west as you can go and still be on the African continent; I sort of wonder if the Senegalese bit is an error on someone's part.
• Hoya carnosa is native to southern China, as well as Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, and Kyushu (Japan), India, Vietnam and Malaysia. I don't know if the Indian population is actually separate or if part of the range was left out.
• A few other Hoya species claimed to be native to China: Hoya chinghungensis, Hoya dasyantha, Hoya fungii, Hoya globulosa, Hoya griffithii, Hoya juangoiana, Hoya lii, Hoya lyi, Hoya manipurensis, Hoya mengtzeensis, Hoya motoskei, Hoya multiflora,⁶
Hoya ovalifolia, Hoya pandurata, Hoya picta, Hoya pottsii, Hoya salweenica. I didn't dig into the details on most of these, but they were on the list; check 'em out yourself if you're interested.⁷
• Jasminum officinale is a welcome change of pace -- it's actually from western China (Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang/Tibet, Yunnan) and its range extends to the west from there (east to west, in order: Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia, Turkey).
• Jasminum polyanthum is strictly Chinese, from the south/central provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan. I'm appreciating that one, too, 'cause it's easier to type out. You're totally bored with this by now, right?⁸
• Lemmaphyllum microphyllum is an oddball epiphytic fern; GRIN didn't have a listing for it, but other sources suggest a range from Korea south through Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, either stretching west into India or with a separate population in India: I never know if my sources are just being lazy with this sort of thing or if there are actually isolated populations of plants all over the place.
• Liriope spicata (lilyturf, monkeygrass) is another down-the-coaster: Japan, Taiwan, most of China, south into Vietnam.
• Livistona chinensis (Chinese fan palm) is also a down-the-coaster: Japan, Taiwan, south China.
• Ludisia discolor (jewel orchid) comes from the southern coast of China, south through Indo-China (Burma, Thailand, Vietnam), Indonesia, and Malaysia.
• Murraya paniculata (orange jasmine, orange jessamine) can be found naturally in the southern couple rows of provinces of China, east to Taiwan and the Philippines, west to India and Sri Lanka, south as far as the north coast of Australia, and some of the western and southwestern Pacific islands. Plus, obviously, all points in between (Indo-China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and so forth).
• Nandina domestica (heavenly bamboo) is from China and Japan; I don't know what parts of China specifically, but with Japan, it's the three southern large islands (Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku).
• Neofinetia spp. weren't in GRIN, but another source puts them in east Asia, specifically Korea, Japan, and China.
• I don't know if anybody tries to grow Nephrolepis hirsutula (scaly sword fern) indoors or not, but GRIN says Guangdong, China is part of the natural range, along with Thailand, Malaysia, and the north coast of Australia.
• I've gotten the general impression that Nerium oleander (oleander) is primarily a Mediterranean and west Asian species, but GRIN puts its native range along an east-west line that stretches from Morocco, in northwest Africa, through north Africa, the Middle East, and India, with a bit in Yunnan province of southwest China.
• GRIN claims Origanum spp. (oregano) are native throughout Europe, south and east into Turkey, Iran, and Georgia, and then small areas of India and China (specifically the provinces of Sichuan, Xizang/Tibet, and Yunnan, all in southwest China). Whether this refers to a fragmented range, multiple species, or inadequate data is unclear.
• Osmanthus fragrans (fragrant olive, sweet olive) is at home from northeast India, Nepal, and Bhutan east into northern parts of Burma/Myanmar and north Thailand, and southwest China. GRIN also lists the southern part of the island of Kyushu, in Japan, but that's a long way from the rest of the plant's range, so I'm not sure what to do with that.
• Paphiopedilum cvv. (slipper orchids) are mainly found in Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, but some species are found as far north as southern China.
• Pellionia repens (watermelon begonia) is native to Indo-China, west to India, east to the Philippines, south to Indonesia, and north to Yunnan and Hainan provinces in south/southwest China.
• Perilla frutescens (beefsteak plant, shiso) may or may not qualify as a houseplant; it sort of seems like it ought to be possible, but I haven't heard of anyone ever actually growing it indoors. It's found in much of southern and coastal China, though, as well as throughout Indo-China, Taiwan, much of Japan and Korea, northern India, Bhutan, Nepal, as far west as Pakistan.
• The range of Phaius tankervillae (nun orchid) is bounded by southern China and Taiwan on the north, northeast India on the northwest, Sri Lanka on the west, northern Australia on the south, and the southwestern Pacific islands on the southeast, as well as most of Malesia and Indo-China.
• Phoenix roebelenii (pigmy date palm) has a fairly small native habitat, limited to north Laos, northwest Vietnam, and the Chinese province of Yunnan, in southwest China.
• Phyllostachys spp. (bamboo) are all found in China; their suitability as houseplants is questionable, but people do attempt it.
• As I understand things, the natural range of Pilea cadierei (aluminum plant) is even more in question than that of most domesticated plants, because nobody's seen it in the wild for quite a while, but it's believed to have originated in Vietnam, and GRIN says there are some in southwest China (Yunnan and Guizhou) as well.
• I'd warn you not to try Pogonatherum paniceum (house bamboo) indoors, whatever common name marketers are trying to put on it, but Tropicos appears to be claiming⁹ that the natural range extends from Pakistan in the west all the way through India, Indo-China and China, south into Malaysia and Indonesia.
• Polypodium formosana (=Polypodium formosanum) (caterpillar fern, naked rabbit's foot fern) is from China, Japan, and Taiwan, according to Tropicos. ("Formosa" is the Portuguese word for Taiwan.)
• Polyscias fruticosa cvv. (ming aralia) has the whole India / China / Indo-China / Malesia thing going on, plus Fiji in the southeast.
• Pteris cretica (cretan brake fern) is from everywhere, according to GRIN: most of equatorial Africa, south Africa, and Madagascar (plus Algeria, for some reason), western and southern Europe, Turkey, Yemen, northern India, Indo-China, China and Japan. Plus an incongruous bit in Guatemala and southern Mexico, which I'm thinking is maybe a mistake.
• Pteris vittata (chinese brake fern, ladder brake fern) is similar to P. cretica, though without Europe or the Mexico/Guatemala bit. P. vittata is also supposed to be present in the wild in three different Australian states, none of which share borders: Queensland (NE Australia), Western Australia (west), and Victoria (SE Australia). I don't know what's going on there.
• Radermachera sinica (China doll) is native to southern China, Taiwan, and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, which most sources agree on, plus GRIN adds Vietnam, Burma/Myanmar, and a teeny bit of northeast India.
• Schefflera arboricola (umbrella tree) is from two islands in the South China Sea: Taiwan and Hainan. I expected more, but that's all GRIN said.
• Solenostemon scutellarioides (=Plectranthus scutellarioides, Coleus blumei, coleus): India, China (the SE corner -- Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi), Indo-China, the Philippines, and then all points south of that line until you hit the north coast of Australia, more or less.
• The natural range of Tacca chantrieri (bat plant) runs from India and Sri Lanka in the west, to pretty much all of Indo-China, plus Malaysia just to the south of Indo-China and most of southern China.
• (We're almost done!)
• The natural range of Trachelospermum jasminoides (confederate jasmine, star jasmine) pretty much includes everything that touches either the South China Sea or the East China Sea, with two exceptions: Korea, Japan, China, and Vietnam, but not the Philippines or Taiwan. At least, not according to GRIN.
• GRIN says Trachycarpus fortunei (windmill palm, Chinese windmill palm) is found throughout central and eastern China, as well as some of northern Burma/Myanmar.
• Southwest China (Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan) is at the northeast tip of the range for Trevesia palmata (snowflake aralia, snowflake plant), which is primarily an Indo-Chinese (Cambodia, Laos, Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) species. A little bit of northeast India and neighboring countries (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh) are included in the range too.
• Vandas are mostly man-made hybrids these days, but some species occur in Yunnan province, in southwest China. The rest of them are spread throughout a India / Philippines / Indonesia triangle.

Borderline cases:

• Citrus, Citrofortunella, and Fortunella spp. (citrus, orange, kumquat, lime, lemon) are thought to have originated somewhere in the general China / Indo-China / India area, but nobody's really sure, because they've been so widely cultivated.
• Farfugium japonicum 'Crested Leopard' may or may not count as a houseplant. (I've heard of it being done, but never actually seen it or attempted it, so I don't know how well that works out for anybody.) It is, nevertheless, native to Japan, north to Korea, south to Taiwan, and in southeast and central China.
• Hemionitis arifolia (heart fern) isn't included in GRIN, but Exotic Rainforest says "primarily from Laos, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and possibly China, Taiwan and other nations in tropical Southeast Asia." So maybe it belongs on the list, and maybe it don't.
• Hoya kerrii is possibly native to China: one source said China, Japan, and Thailand; another said Thailand and the Philippines.
• Hoya lacunosa cvv. is possibly from south China, according to Google; it's more definitely present in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
• Microsorum steerii (oil fern) and M. thaliandicum aren't in GRIN, but both are claimed to be present in southern China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. M. thailandicum is also, as one might expect, found in Thailand.
• Nepenthes spp. (pitcher plants) are mainly from warmer climates to the south of China, but at least one, N. mirabilis, can be found in Guangdong and Hainan, in south China, as well as south through Indo-China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Queensland in northeast Australia, and a few Pacific islands (Micronesia, Palau). I don't know if N. mirabilis is one of the species people try to grow indoors or not.
• Phalaenopsis cvv. (moth orchid) are mostly hybrids, as far as what's available to grow as a houseplant. A few species are supposed to live in parts of China (particularly the large southern island of Hainan), like P. hainanensis (Hainan and Yunnan), P. braceana (Yunnan), P. deliciosa ssp. hookeriana and P. mannii (eastern Himalayas to SW China), and a handful of others, but it's not clear how widespread any of these are in cultivation, and my main source for this is Wikipedia, making it even more doubtful.

-
Image credits:
SE Asia map: Cropped version of a map from the UT-Austin Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, with the addition of a label for the Ryukyu Islands
China map: Wikimedia Commons

¹ Being a product of the U.S. educational system, I was embarrassingly ignorant of a lot of this region before I started working on this post. I'm a little clearer on southeast Asia now, plus I can name, spell, and indicate the approximate location of three and a half Chinese provinces (Fujian, Hainan, Yunnan and sometimes Guangdong), which I couldn't do before.
² The genus is in the process of being taxonomically reorganized, so I'm not sure whether this will be true in the future, or for how long. Try as I might, I can't actually keep up with all of the taxonomic stuff that's going on lately.
³ Fujian is also sometimes rendered "Fukien" when spoken by English-speakers, hence "fukien tea" (Carmona sp.)
⁴ Which is also called Myanmar; whichever name you use for the country will inevitably offend someone, and I, not having any idea about the issue(s) involved and very little motivation to put in the research at the moment, have no idea whose side I'm on. Wikiposedly the U.S. government prefers "Burma," so I'm going with Burma.
⁵ Just checking to see if you're reading this, and incidentally amusing myself a bit -- this gets kind of tedious to type out. Plus I keep having to look at maps. Cymbidiums in fact are mostly man-made hybrids, but the original species are found inside of an India-Korea-New-Guinea triangle, including parts of China but apparently excluding the Philippines.
⁶ Questionable -- the source for this had it as part of a list of Chinese natives but didn't include China on the more specific page for the plant, so I don't know.
⁷ There's also a good chance that some of those names are synonyms for other names on the list.
⁸ Well, suck it up, 'cause we're only up to the letter J.
⁹ (Tropicos and I have some problems with one another.)

List: Plants for Offices

I've been asked by a reader to suggest some plants that would work well in an office setting. Unfortunately, the list I came up with is kind of boring, because offices, taken as a group, present a very specific kind of unnatural environment. Generally, one is talking about low light, very low humidity, and occasional drought (if the office is closed on weekends and holidays, as is typical). Occasional cold may also be a problem in some places, because not all businesses bother to heat buildings which aren't in use, like on weekends, nights, and holidays. It's not a combination that's good, or even tolerable, for very many plants.

Obviously people whose workspace has a window, or who can add a small desk light, have more options to consider, but for purposes of this list, I'm assuming you can't add a light.

Chinese evergreen, Aglaonema cvv. (shown: 'Maria') Some varieties are better with cold than others, and there's no easy way to tell which are and which aren't, so this isn't a great choice for offices where the heat is turned off on the weekend, but they're good with drought, low humidity, and low light. They typically need to be cut back every couple years, and they're slow to resprout, so this may not be a good choice if you're looking for a plant to stay in the same spot for years and years.

Shoebutton tree, Ardisia elliptica. Very well adapted to office conditions in general, though drought may result in some leaf drop. The biggest drawback to Ardisia as an office plant is that they're very fast growers: they need frequent repotting, and the growth habit becomes less compact once they hit maturity, though they remain easy to care for.

Cast-iron plant, Aspidistra elatior. Sort of the opposite problem from Ardisia: Aspidistras are very slow-growing plants, and take a long time to get around to doing anything. On the other hand, low light, low humidity, occasional cold, and occasional drought are all taken in stride. Hot, dry offices may encourage spider mites, but that's about it for cultural problems. Aspidistras tend to be hard to find, and are more expensive than most other plants of the same size when you can find them, though.

Clivia miniata. Wasn't sure whether to include Clivia on this list or not: though dry air is well-tolerated, and they actually require cooler temperatures and drought for part of the year in order to bloom, light is potentially a problem. Ideally, these need bright indirect light, though plants can survive in less. In an office setting, you should probably not expect flowers, though they could make perfectly fine foliage plants.

Pothos, Epipremnum aureum. (shown: 'Marble Queen') Dry air and occasional missed waterings aren't problems. Low light is fine, though variegated varieties like 'Marble Queen' may revert to all-green if the plant is in too dark of a spot. Cold below 50-60F (10-16C) will slow or stop growth, and prolonged cold can damage or kill plants, depending on how cold and for how long, but most people, in most offices, should be able to grow pothos. May need to be cut back every few years for best appearance.

Heart-leaf philodendron, Philodendron hederaceum. Fine with low light, low humidity, occasional drought. Somewhat more cold-tolerant than pothos, but otherwise very similar in form and care.

Snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue, Sansevieria trifasciata. (shown: NOID birdsnest-type) Very tolerant of drought, though if you have helpful co-workers who water it for you, it may not last long, especially in combination with cold. Low light and low humidity are fine. In darker locations, leaves tend to become weak and floppy. The shorter birdsnest types seem to be touchier than the versions with longer leaves, particularly when it comes to overwatering.

Strawberry begonia, Saxifraga stolonifera. Extended drought is a problem, but dry air and low light are tolerated well, and cooler temperatures don't appear to be a problem at all, at least not the degree of cold one would expect in a reasonably large, insulated building.

Peace lily, Spathiphyllum cvv. Boring, boring, boring, but cold-tolerant into the 40s (F; 4-9C), low-light-tolerant to make you weep, and unbothered by dry air, whatever people will tell you. The only thing is: they don't allow a lot of margin for error when it comes to watering, and either you know how to water one or you don't. (The answer, for the record, is to wait until the day the leaves first start to droop, then water thoroughly, drain off the excess, and then do not water it again until you see the leaves begin to droop again. Letting the plant get too dry between waterings will cause some older leaves to drop, and not letting it get dry enough will lead to dead leaf tips and margins.) Flowers are most likely following a dose of fertilizer, but can happen at any time.

Arrowhead vine, Syngonium podophyllum. I'm not a huge fan of Syngoniums, because it's been my experience that unless one goes to a lot of effort, the best they're ever going to look is the moment when you buy them. Once they start to vine, which is usually within a few months, the new leaves get smaller, the plant's form gets stranger, and then you either learn to live with it or you cut back the vining bits to the base and hope they resprout in a timely manner. However, Syngoniums are still technically suitable for office settings, being fairly tolerant of missed waterings (or excessive waterings, for that matter, unlike a lot of the plants on this list), dry air, and low light. Cold may slow Syngonium down, but is unlikely to kill them.
For the recommends, well, these are all pretty sturdy plants, so doing recommends is kind of unnecessary. I've personally had the most positive experiences with Aglaonema, Ardisia, and Philodendron, and the most trouble with Sansevieria. Your results may vary.

Not pictured:

• Ardisia crenata (coral berry) As for A. elliptica.
• Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant) Best in offices that never get cold and have pretty good light. Minerals, especially fluoride, can cause leaves to get dead tips. Keep away from heat / air conditioning vents.
• Chlorophytum x 'Fire Flash' (Fire Flash, Green Orange, Mandarin plant) As for C. comosum; keep out of direct sun.
• Dieffenbachia cvv. (dumb cane) Warm, bright offices only. (Doesn't need sun, just bright indirect light.) Grows fast and needs to be cut back regularly; the larger varieties seem to be easier on all counts.
• Dracaena deremensis cvv., including 'Janet Craig,' 'Warneckei,' 'Lemon-Lime'/'Goldstar,' 'Art,' 'Janet Craig Compacta,' 'Malaika,' etc. Not good for offices with helpful watering buddies. Mineral buildup or overwatering can lead to dead leaf tips and margins. Also not good for offices which may go below 60F/16C.
• Dracaena fragrans (corn plant) As for D. deremensis cvv.
• Dracaena marginata (Madagascar dragon tree) As for D. deremensis cvv., plus overhead light is much preferred to light from the side -- side-lit plants tend to look droopy, as the leaves adjust their position to take advantage of as much light as possible.
• Dracaena sanderiana ("lucky bamboo," ribbon plant) Ugh. If you really have to. It's probably best to grow this in soil, rather than water, and if you do grow it in water, you'll need to do regular complete changes of the water, and add a little fertilizer from time to time. I don't think they're particularly good about cold, but they'll survive dry air, drought, and low light just fine.
• Radermachera sinica (China doll) Generally tolerant of dry air, temperature extremes, and low light, but an aggressively fast grower, likely to look gangly once the dwarfing hormones wear off, and somewhat fussy about water, so definitely not ideal.
• Rhapis excelsa (lady palm) Mineral buildup and dry air can cause burnt leaf tips, so these are also not ideal office plants, but they're flexible on temperature, drought, and light. They do need to be repotted every couple years, at least, to avoid root rot.
• Sansevieria cylindrica ("wisdom horns") Tolerant of office conditions generally (though don't push it on cold unless you can also keep it pretty dry), though it would be happier in direct sun. Almost certain to be slow-growing in an office setting.
• Zamioculcas zamiifolia (ZZ plant, eternity plant) Another one to avoid if you have helpful co-workers or if the office is ever unheated during cold spells. Otherwise very adaptable but slow-growing. Plants grown in very low light will produce weak, pale, stretched leaves.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXV

Mostly greens this time around, but they're interesting greens, with fairly distinct textures. But first, an uncompensated product endorsement.

The husband and I finished watching The Wire last night. For those who don't know, The Wire is an HBO series that ran from 2002 to 2008, and it's about, among other things, the drug trade, police department, city government, prisons, and school system of Baltimore, MD. And it's the real Baltimore: filmed on location, with lots of actors who are actually from Baltimore.

It's also the only show I've seen lately that's genuinely suspenseful, the only show that sets up rules about what can and cannot happen in this world and then sticks to them (I'm looking at you, Caprica), the only show with characters who seem like they could be real people and change in ways that real people might change, and some really fascinating things to say about American society, the War on [Some People Who Use] Drugs, politics, being a police officer, redemption (as well as fucking up), and a ton of other stuff.

Except not all boring and shit, like that made it sound.

Also, the realism and occasional bleakness mean that they can make some amazingly funny jokes sometimes. Seriously. You'll die. People have called it "the greatest television series ever made," and meant it. (Dunno about that, but it's surely got to be in the running.)

The Wire is not for you if you blanch at strong language, including but not limited to slurs relating to race and sexual orientation. (Though if that's a problem, you probably stopped reading a couple paragraphs ago.) You're also not going to like it if you have a problem with occasional nudity, simulated sex, drug use, or graphic and frequent violence.

It's also often very sad. Bad people don't always get what's coming to them; good people either. Also it's frequently very hard to tell the difference: this is not a show where everybody's either good or bad and they all have color-coded hats on at all times so you know who is who. You'll be amazed at some of the people you'll eventually feel sorry for.

The Wire is also frequently hard to follow: like most shows, they'll tell you what you need to know, but unlike most shows, they won't keep telling you and telling you to make sure you get it. (Closed captioning helps, as does watching with someone else.) But paying close attention pays off. Also, do yourself a favor and start watching from the beginning of season 1: we were getting DVDs from the library, but we missed some episodes in season 1 because some people hadn't returned the relevant discs yet, which made our experience more confusing than it had to be.

Anyway. If you're looking for more specific things about what the show's about or what it's like, you can check the Wikipedia page for the show; the above is just what I like about it. If you've heard nice things before and thought, oh, I should check that out sometime, this is me letting you know that you really, really should.

Anyway. On to the leaves.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Rubus sp. Good leaf, but bad photo. With a lot of these, I was taping them to the light on Nina's terrarium and then taking pictures that way (It's easier to keep the leaf still when it's unable to move.), and this one apparently caught more of a shadow than I intended.

Plantago major. I'd been curious about what broadleaf plantain would look like by transmitted light for a while before I actually got around to doing it. It's one of my favorite weeds, going back to when I was a kid. The photo, obviously, was disappointing. These things happen.

Vitis sp. Surprisingly similar to the Rubus picture, just in a different color. Which I guess is kind of cool?

Trifolium pratense. My favorite picture from this set, for reasons I don't quite understand. I like the plant quite a bit, too, as far as that goes.

Begonia NOID, possibly 'Texas Coffee Star.' I've done this plant before, but this wound up being a slightly better picture than the previous one.

Aspidistra elatior. So far, this is working out much better for me than A. lurida ever did; it hasn't been that much time, and it's not growing very fast, or at all, but I'll still be ecstatic with the plant if it makes it through the winter. Wish me luck.

Musa x 'Cheeka.' Picture's pretty cool, but this was a really bad purchase. Although the plant is still alive, it's not happy: each new leaf is smaller than the one before, and it's gotten better-than-usual care, by my standards -- more light, more warmth, more fertilizer -- so it shouldn't be complaining the way it is. We won't be trying any Musa or Ensete species again. At least not unless something big changes around here.

Asclepias syriaca. Was not expecting the common milkweed to have so much going on, vein-wise.

Abutilon 'Bella Red,' petals. The color is wrong here; it's a lot less orange than this, really. I blame the camera.

Ficus elastica 'Tineke.' (ID uncertain; there are lots of variegated Ficus elastica varieties out there.) Also too orange. I don't know how many pictures of this species I've tried, but I don't think I've been happy with one yet. I blame myself.

Site-related: Difficulty numbers

Back in November, I sat down in front of the computer with the difficulty-numbers spreadsheet and started anew, plugging in whatever numbers seemed appropriate without consulting the old numbers first. This took a stupidly long time and failed to accomplish anything meaningful: most of the new numbers came out pretty close to the old ones. However, in a few cases, the experiences I'd had with a plant since generating the old difficulty numbers meant that the new difficulty numbers were significantly different. So I've had vague plans to change the numbers over to the new ones for two and a half months now, and I've decided to do this today. The sidebar list has already been put into the new order; I'll be going into the profiles to change the numbers there over the next day or two. This is unlikely to affect you in any way whatsoever, though in theory if you click on the right profile at the right time, you might see no number at the top, or something like that.

I won't give you the full list of changes, since, as I said, most of them were pretty similar to the old numbers anyway (and in a handful of cases, they were exactly the same), but here are the biggest movers, and reasons, where applicable:

Went from easier to harder:

Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold,' without flower.
Clivia miniata (3.2 to 4.4) -- I think the main change here has to do with the fairly extreme switch in care between summer and winter, though I also may have initially underestimated their capacity for getting bugs. (Mine don't have bugs, knock wood, but I've seen mealys on other people's Clivias often enough that I'm taking it more seriously as a risk.)


Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana.'
Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana' (1.2 to 2.6) -- still an easy plant, overall, but I've had a lot of weird little things happen that make me think I was overestimating it before. Growing tips have died and resprouted (a side effect, I think, of watering from overhead; they don't like to get water stuck inside the growing tip), sprouts from the side of a cane have suddenly blackened for no reason, that kind of thing.


Begonia rex-cultorum 'Harmony's Red Robin.'
Begonia rex-cultorum (8.0 to 9.6) -- subsequent bad work experiences, plus the realization that nobody else is that great with these either, leads to Begonia stealing the most-difficult spot away from Gardenia. Though I still like my 'Texas Coffee Star,' or whatever it is, and it seems not to hate me nearly as much as every other rex begonia I've ever met.


Ledebouria sp.
Ledebouria socialis (2.2 to 3.9) -- Had some watering problems last summer. I still haven't figured out whether I was watering too much or not enough, but whichever it was, they weren't happy about it. It probably didn't help that I'd divided my plant into three last spring.


Dracaena sanderiana.
Dracaena sanderiana (1.1 to 3.5) -- Part of this is sheer unreasoning hatred: I've never liked these. But I've also had some problems with a plant that used to belong to the husband, that I've taken over care of. Some of the growing tips are dying, the soil has springtails (or something), I've seen lots of other people's plants just up and die over nothing. They're not good long-term plants.


Aspidistra lurida 'Milky Way.'
Aspidistra lurida 'Milky Way' (1.1 to 4.8) -- I recently lost my third A. lurida, in the winter, to unclear cultural problems. I thought I had it figured out the first time, but then the second died. So then I bought a third one, and it stuck around for an admirably long time, but it's died too. AND I DO NOT KNOW WHY. So I hate this plant. No more Aspidistras, ever. Even A. elatior, which I've never even tried before. Just because it's related.

Went from harder to easier:

Cissus quadrangularis.
Cissus quadrangularis (2.4 to 1.2) -- I don't actually know what numbers changed here to make this jump happen.


Pilea cadierei.
Pilea cadierei (6.0 to 4.8) -- Though still more difficult than your average plant (mostly because it needs more warmth and humidity than most), I think I was overcautious when I came up with the original numbers. It doesn't appear to have particularly unreasonable humidity requirements, and it's been growing fine in the basement all winter, so temperature isn't that big of a deal either.


Alworthia 'Black Gem.'
Alworthia 'Black Gem' (3.3 to 1.8) -- I have yet to have a problem with these. It's likely I was being more skittish about overwatering than has proven to be the case. (Though some of my success there may be because I have a really lean soil mix; I'm not sure if I'd be as confident if I were using Miracle Gro or something.)


Senecio macroglossus.
Senecio macroglossus (5.4 to 3.9) -- I still don't especially like the plant, but I suspect the watering problems I talked about in the original profile were partly a matter of bad soil and overpotting. I probably also wasn't giving the plant enough light, then. They seem fairly resilient, if still a little more difficult than the average houseplant.


Homalomena 'Emerald Gem.'
Homalomena 'Emerald Gem' (5.6 to 3.8) -- We've reached some sort of agreement, is all I can say. It's possible, again, that overpotting was part of the problem originally; it always threw leaves after I watered, and then stayed wet for a long time. Lately, though, it's been getting much better about this. It wilts slightly when it needs water, I give it water, and then it sends up three new leaves in quick succession. It still doesn't look as good as it did when I bought it: by this point, the stems are getting kind of leggy, and all the leaves are pointing straight up, because I have it under a fluorescent light and it doesn't really get any light from the side. But the new leaves are large and increasingly abundant, and there are even some new suckers. So we've turned a corner.


Synadenium grantii.
Synadenium grantii (3.5 to 1.7) -- Aside from some understandable trauma very recently (I transplanted some cuttings to a large pot, and they dropped leaves), and occasional dropped leaves to let me know I waited too long to water, I've never seen Synadenium grantii have a problem with anything. Not sure how it got the 3.5 rating to begin with, but I think 1.7 is about right.


Hylocereus sp.
Hylocereus undatus (3.1 to 1.2) -- It's a fugly, fugly plant, even when it's more or less healthy (and mine actually is a little etiolated, which doesn't make it prettier), but it's not hard to grow. I actually kind of wish it were a little harder to grow, so I had more of an excuse for the extreme hideousness.