Picture: Bryophyllum x houghtonii

My intended post on the possible ban on lead in ammunition and other hunting and fishing equipment, which I mentioned in passing on Monday, is turning out to require a lot more investigation than I had originally intended, partly because I really know very little about lead, ammunition, hunting and fishing. (I'm having a good time trying to learn stuff really fast, though.)

I'm still going to try to post it on Friday, and if not Friday then Sunday at the latest (for reasons which will be revealed in the post, I will be very disppointed if I can't post it by Sunday).


Meanwhile, here is a picture of Bryophyllum x houghtonii I took a couple weeks ago at the ex-job. (Originally identified as B. daigremontianum, but Lee, in comments, said the leaves were too narrow to be daigremontianum. I'm keeping the link to the B. daigremontianum profile, because it's still half correct -- houghtonii is B. daigremontianum x B. delagoense -- and the care is presumably interchangeable. It's quite possible that the plants I was talking about in the profile were also B. x houghtonii, since the ones at work all kinda looked like this, but we didn't see mature plants that often because we tried to pull them up, so the ID was sort of always shaky.)

Errata, Taxonomy

I know the Errata posts are not the most fascinating, but I feel sort of obliged -- if I'm going to be responsible for spreading bad information, the least I can do is post the good information when I find what it is. Also I figure some of y'all are nerdy enough to care about these things for their own sakes.

So. In the most recent round of name changes, we have:

Maranta leuconeura kerchoviana.
Maranta leuconeura kerchovEana --> M. l. kerchovIana. It's probably a bad assumption, but I've been assuming that the "correct" version of names is probably the one that shows up most often in Google searches, at least when we're talking about spelling variants. "Kerchoveana" is also pretty widespread, and I'm not positive it's wrong, but it seemed worth changing anyway, since I was already there to update all the posts to link M. l. kerchoviana to the M. l. erythroneura profile, having realized that the odds are very, very slim that I'll ever write a separate profile for M. l. kerchoviana.

Bryophyllum tubiflorum.
Kalanchoe tubiflora has become Bryophyllum tubiflorum.

Aloe 'Doran Black.'
The eternal alternation between Aloe 'Doran Black' and Aloe 'DorIan Black' is once again in a 'Doran' phase, and this had better be the last time I have to change this, goddamn it.

Anthurium crystallinum 'Mehani.'
I've decided I'm pretty sure that Anthurium 'Mehani' is actually A. crystallinum 'Mehani,' as certain other websites claim.

Plectranthus verticillatus.
Plectranthus nummularius got switched to P. verticillatus. I've been calling it nummularius for so long that I don't expect I'll be able to remember this, but we'll see. I pretty much never shut up about this plant, so if nothing else I got a lot of practice typing "verticillatus:" who knows, maybe it'll help me remember.

Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum.'
Polypodium aureum 'Mandianum' and 'Blue Hare' have been changed to Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum' / 'Blue Hare.' This is also going to be a tough one for me to remember.

Albuca bracteata.
Ornithogalum bracteatum and O. longibracteatum are now obsolete names for Albuca bracteata. This is also going to be impossible for me to remember, as Ornithogalum has been the name for as long as I've been reading plant books, and has a bit better memory hook ("ornitho" means "bird;" I don't know what the "-galum" part means) than Albuca (no clue, on the meaning of "albuca"). But I will do my best.

Vriesea imperialis.
Alcantarea imperialis becomes Vriesea imperialis, which was long overdue; most people were well ahead of me on that one already.

Justicia scheidweileri.
I'd mentally switched names already, and was using the correct name in the new posts, but I finally went back and changed Porphyrocoma pohliana to Justicia scheidweileri in the old posts.

Astrophytum ornatum.
Finally, in one spot I referred to Astrophytum ornatUM as A. ornatA: ornatum is correct, and this has been changed.

I'm aware of certain other incorrect plant names being used here at PATSP, but I can only stand to change names for just so long before it becomes unbearably tedious. Also: I just don't think some of the changes can be correct (Dracaena marginata --> D. reflexa); in other cases it would be incredibly difficult to go back and make the changes to every post in which the plant appears (Dracaena deremensis --> D. fragrans); and sometimes I just find the new name aesthetically displeasing and am hoping that they'll change it back even though I don't think they will (Synadenium grantii --> Euphorbia umbellata).

Now go and get on with your Saturday.

List: Houseplants Which Resemble Piles of Sticks

What? Some of them do.

Agave geminiflora.

Bryophyllum tubiflorum.

Cissus quadrangularis.

Codiaeum variegatum 'Picasso's Paintbrush.'

Euphorbia tirucalli.

Gasteria x pseudonigricans?

Hatiora salicornioides.

Peperomia ferreyrae.

Rhipsalis teres var. heteroclada. (ID is tentative; Rhipsalis species are difficult to tell apart.)

Sansevieria cylindrica.
But which ones are pleasant to grow?

Well, I've grown seven of the ten (haven't tried Agave geminiflora, Bryophyllum tubiflorum, or Codiaeum variegatum 'Picasso's Paintbrush'), and don't have too many complaints about most of them, but if I must choose three to recommend:

Euphorbia tirucalli, whatever faults it may have as a poisonous, somewhat shapeless monster that wants to blind people and burn their skin off, is remarkably easy to grow, even under terrible indoor conditions, and mine has certainly proven its mettle. (I'll have had it ten years in October, which sort of doesn't seem like it could possibly be real. And yet.) And however much it might want to wound and disfigure, if you just leave it alone, that's not going to be a problem.

Hatiora salicornioides is another long acquaintance of mine, with whom I've had mostly positive experiences, and it's even safe to have around. Rhipsalis teres is pretty much exactly the same way, though I haven't known it as long.

It's also hard to find much fault with Sansevieria cylindrica, unless you like plants that will grow from time to time. (S. cylindrica does grow, just very slowly, has been my experience. This partly reflects the care it's received, though.)

The anti-recommend is Codiaeum variegatum 'Picasso's Paintbrush.' I may not have grown it specifically, but I've grown crotons before, and don't consider them worth the spider mites they bring with them.

Not pictured (It's impossible to make a comprehensive list, because there's no way to quantify "resemble," "piles," or "of sticks," but here are some others I considered.):

• Agave victoriae-reginae. Pretty much any Agave variety with non-floppy leaves, really.
• Aloe 'Grassy Lassie' in particular, but also a fair number of other Aloes.
• Araucaria bidwillii
• Bowiea volubilis (reader suggestion)
  
• Brassavola spp. (reader suggestion)
• Ceropegia stapeliiformis (reader suggestion)
  
• Chiloschista lunifera and C. parishii (reader suggestion)
• Crassula muscosa, a little bit.
• Cynanchum marnierianum (reader suggestion)
  
• Dracaena marginata, at last in silhouette.
• Euphorbia lactea, particularly large specimens.
• Euphorbia milii cvv., particularly older plants that have lost their lower leaves.
• Euphorbia platyclada (reader suggestion)
  
• Hoya linearis (reader suggestion)
  
• Hoya retusa (reader suggestion)
• Hylocereus sp.
• Leuchtenbergia principis, in the same way as Agaves.
• Pedilanthus tithymaloides, especially older plants that have lost a lot of lower leaves.
• Rhipsalis spp. are basically made for this list, or maybe vice-versa; some of the more commonly-available ones are R. baccifera and R. ewaldiana.
• Rhytidocaulon ciliatum (reader suggestion)
• Sansevieria hargesiana, and several other Sansevierias.
• Stapelia gigantea, slightly.

Walkaways Part 11

Just another random batch of stuff I didn't buy. Some of them are very cool, but wrong for me for one reason or another; some would have worked just fine, and I just couldn't justify it to myself because I was buying other stuff instead, or I was having a weird day, or something.

First up is the one that most impressed me.

Ananas lucidus. Ex-job. Don't remember the price.
In person, this is a tall, dark red/brown/black plant with a bit of white bloom on the backs of the leaves. It photographed badly, due to interference with other stuff in the background, and too much light, and the camera being just kind of generally bad at color reproduction. If I have a chance to take a better picture sometime, I will do so. But the point is, this is big and spiky and dark and very cool-looking, but way too big for the house, and buying it would almost certainly have taken more than half the money left in my checking account, so it stayed at the store.

Fruit of Ananas lucidus.

Cyanotis somaliensis. Reha Greenhouses. $5.
Cyanotis somaliensis has been stalking me, I think: I keep seeing it around, and almost buying it, but I haven't been able to convince myself I need one yet. Part of the problem is that I didn't know what it was until fairly recently; once I found out, that was a problem too, because my current Cyanotis, C. kewensis, has been . . . well, not difficult exactly, but sort of hard to communicate with.

But that's been resolved, more or less, so it's probably only a matter of time before I get a C. somaliensis.

Crested Euphorbia lactea grafted to E. drupifera. Ex-job. $25 or $30, probably.
I'm not really a big fan of grafted plants, and with one exception, I don't really care for crested plants either. So this one never had a chance. But I thought it was worth including here for the people who like them; I've seen lots of different color varieties, but I'd never seen one that was speckled like this.

Aglaonema NOID. It was 'Susie' something, or something-"Susie." Possibly it was "Susan," not "Susie." I don't know. It wasn't on the tag; somebody told me and then I half-forgot. Ex-job. $30.
Too much money, but I would have bought it otherwise. I like the red Ags, and this was small enough that I'm sure I could have squeezed it in somewhere.

Aloe dorotheae 'Sunset.' Reha Greenhouses. $7? $5? Something like that.
This was a size problem. I don't have a lot of full-sun spots in the house, and although it might not look it in the picture, this was a big plant. I didn't think I could find a spot big enough for it that also get enough light for the plant to stay red. Plus I was buying two and a half other Aloes already.

Acalypha wilkesiana NOID. Pierson's (Cedar Rapids). Didn't ask about price.
I suspect this is one of those plants that looks great in the store, but when you get it home and try to grow it gets all leggy and pale and needs to be pinched back every five seconds. (See: Iresine herbstii, Solenostemon scutellarioides.) It just has that look.

I was, therefore, not interested. But there's no denying that it looks great in the store.

Bryophyllum tubiflorum. Reha Greenhouses. $5.
I kind of want one of these, but it seemed like the sort of thing I could trade for, rather than buy. Not that $5 is a terrible price for a 4-inch plant, though. I hear the flowers are nice.

Monstera adansonii. Ex-job. $25? $30?
We had these at work when I first started, and although it was hard not to be impressed with the speed of growth, they got out of hand almost immediately. The distance between leaves (the internodal distance) is long, so you get lots of vine but not much leaf. Also, we had occasional problems with spider mites. And it's expensive. It just seemed like trouble.

NOID plant from Commelinaceae. Reha Greenhouses. $5.
I don't actually know what this is. I know it looks like a fuzzier, shorter version of purple heart (Tradescantia pallida), and maybe it actually is, but the lady there said it was something else. They had regular T. pallida there as well, and when the two were side by side, the T. pallida was much darker and smoother. They also had a hairier all-green version (which I think was Tradescantia sillamontana) and a less-hairy plant that looked identical to the above NOID, but was green on top and purple underneath. She didn't know what any of them were called, botanically, but said that the differences in coloration were intrinsic, not the result of getting different culture. This is the sort of thing I could possibly figure out on my own if I took an afternoon to Google, and I'll still do that if I have to, but I'm hoping that maybe someone will know without me having to go to that trouble.

I have no memory of the reasoning why I didn't buy it. It was probably that the two and a half Aloes were just cooler.

Unfinished business re: Bryophyllum daigremontianum

Waaaaaaaaay back in the earliest days of the blog, long, long ago in the mists of last November, I did a post on Bryophyllum daigremontianum, and among many, many other things I said, I said this:

Another thing we can notice from this picture is that there seem to be two different kinds of plant here: one with sharply pointed leaves, and one with rounded leaves. (If you're having trouble seeing it, the two largest plants in the picture are the pointed kind, and the ones in the right top and right bottom corners are rounded.) I think that these are different morphs of the same plant (in which case it's also a master of disguise!), but I haven't bothered to let them grow out to check. I do know for sure that the rounded-leaf type will eventually grow up to develop spots and serrated edges, because I did grow one of those out, by itself, to see what it would do. So if anybody knows for sure that Bryophyllum daigremontianum is (or isn't) capable of changing its appearance like this, let me know. If not, I will be forced to grow out one of each and see what happens.

And then I completely forgot about this, because, frankly, it wasn't the most interesting of questions, and then I had a blog to photograph barns with, plants that needed to be written, and a husband to water, and there was this whole big thing. But, owing to the work policy of forgetting the hell about the cactus and succulents once the annuals began arriving, some of everything grew out anyway, et voilà --




This is the plant that results if you let the pointy leaves grow out on their own. I don't know what it is, but it's not Bryophyllum daigremontianum, a.k.a. Kalanchoe daigremontiana. (Anybody have an ID?) And now we know.

Evil Genius (Bryophyllum daigremontianum)

Pretty much all you have to do for this plant is give it reasonably bright light (full sun is best, though it will live through a lot less than that) and not overwater. They're very, very easy. Kind of too easy, actually.

And B. daigremontianum (sometimes Kalanchoe daigremontiana; Bryophyllum appears to be the current taxonomic consensus, though) isn't, like, the bane of my existence or anything, but it's kind of obnoxious. We don't actually plant any of it deliberately, anywhere, and yet it's all over the place. How? Because it is much, much smarter than we are.

This is what it usually looks like:


Just a couple little plants happily mooching off of an unsuspecting cactus. Now, the first thing you might notice here is how damned close these plants are to the cactus's spines. That's because the plant is an evil genius, and has realized that it doesn't need to grow its own spines if it can just get the cactus to defend it. Which it does (the cactus does, I mean.). I do go through the cacti and succulents on a regular basis, picking out the weeds, but with stuff like this, if I don't want to go to the trouble of getting tweezers, I just leave it alone, 'cause it's not worth getting stabbed repeatedly. Sometimes I get stabbed repeatedly even with the tweezers and give up. And if I don't pull it out of the pot because it's too much trouble to do so, then the plant lives to grow another day: it wins.

But this is only the first layer of its diabolical plan, because it's also figured out another trick: it's incredibly brittle. When you go to pull it out of a pot, if a leaf or stem catches on the side of the pot, or on a cactus spine, or even the leaf of another Bryophyllum right next to it, leaves will break off and fall deeper into the pot, where you really can't get them without tweezers, and they will eventually sprout there and grow into new plants within a few months, that will have to be pulled out again.


The detached leaves don't even care that much whether they're in soil or not: the next picture shows some leaves that have sprouted in an empty spot in a plastic tray. Granted, they have a little bit of soil to work with here, because the tray is dirty, ¹ but it's still not what you'd call a nice little pot of soil or anything. Not even enough for a quarter-inch layer of soil. And they're growing anyway.


Another thing we can notice from this picture is that there seem to be two different kinds of plant here: one with sharply pointed leaves, and one with rounded leaves. (If you're having trouble seeing it, the two largest plants in the picture are the pointed kind, and the ones in the right top and right bottom corners are rounded.) I think that these are different morphs of the same plant (in which case it's also a master of disguise!), but I haven't bothered to let them grow out to check. I do know for sure that the rounded-leaf type will eventually grow up to develop spots and serrated edges, because I did grow one of those out, by itself, to see what it would do. So if anybody knows for sure that Bryophyllum daigremontianum is (or isn't) capable of changing its appearance like this, let me know. If not, I will be forced to grow out one of each and see what happens. (UPDATE: The other plant, with the pointed leaves, turns out to be Lenophyllum texanum.)

So, okay. It has minions (the cacti it gets to defend it), it hides so that you can never be sure whether you've really gotten it or not, it's a master of disguise. What else? Oh yeah: if you let it grow long enough, the leaves will eventually start growing baby plants on the edges. We don't actually encourage this to happen. When I started working there, there was one ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) that had two or three hitchhiking B. daigremontianum in the pot with it, that were big enough to produce plantlets, but I'm pretty sure the Bryophyllums in question have since been removed, or the plant itself sold, or something; I haven't seen it lately. So, I don't have original photos to share of this, but it's easy enough to find pictures on-line of this sort of thing (the species ID may not be exact, but the basic method looks the same for all the plants that do this):


What's going on here is actually very interesting, and is covered in excessively jargony detail here, in a post at sciencedaily.com. I'm not sure if we're actually talking about the same plant, because the picture they use for the article doesn't resemble any of the plantlets I see at work. (I think the picture is actually of Bryophyllum tubiflorum, but I am not an expert in Bryophyllum taxonomy, and don't know anyone who is, so I'm just going with my best guesses here. My best guesses tell me somebody got the wrong picture.) The gist of the article is the same for any of the Kalanchoe or Bryophyllum species that reproduce this way, though: these plants have made a sort of deal with the devil. ² A gene which normally is only used in making seeds has been altered in such a way that it's useless for seed-making. Thanks to the changes, though, this gene can be expressed in leaves. So instead of forming embryonic plants in seeds, it forms embryonic plants in the leaves, skipping the whole pollination-and-seed stage entirely. ³

There are disadvantages: all of the plant's reproduction is now asexual, so there's no gene-shuffling going on at all from one generation to the next. Any pathogen that managed to crack the code and consume the plant would also be able to kill the plantlets, and grand-plantlets, and so on, and would be capable of wiping out all the plants in a given area within days. It's kind of like taking everything you own, putting it in separate rooms to protect it, and then putting the same lock on each of the rooms: yes, it's all separate, it's all protected from anything that can't open the door, but anybody who gets the right key can still come along and take it all. (Sexual species always have the hope that even if 99.999% of the population were wiped out by something, that remaining 0.001% could resist somehow, get together, and breed a new race of resistant organisms. ⁴ Asexual organisms like Bryophyllum daigremontianum can still change over time, because they still get hit by radioactivity and cosmic rays and ultraviolet light and so forth, so their DNA varies some, but change happens considerably more slowly, for various reasons which are beyond our scope. I can recommend books if you're really interested.⁵)

The plant might respond, call me stupid if you want, but I'm everywhere, and you aren't. You don't even have the power to make me go away, when you really, really want to. I'll be here long after you're gone. And then – the world will be mine! Then it would laugh maniacally, wait for thunder to crash in the background, and, I don't know, pet a cat or something.

-

Photo credits:
Baby plants on edge of leaf: CrazyD at the Wikipedia entry for Kalanchoe daigremontiana.
All others: me.

¹ Yes, I am ashamed.
² See? Evil.
³ Though, weirdly enough, it still goes to the trouble of making flowers. I suppose even an evil genius can find time to relax with a hobby occasionally.
⁴ The name for this happening is "evolution," which you may have heard of.
⁵The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley, is a good one.