A Word Problem

Mr. Subjunctive has 38 seeds to start in vermiculite.¹ The container he wants to start them in is an undivided rectangle measuring 12 inches by 8 inches.

Question 1. How many rows and columns of seeds should he make if he wants to place the seeds as far apart from one another as possible, in a square grid like that in Figure 1?

Figure 1. Seedling silhouettes are colored various shades of red, green, and brown because I think the diagrams are more interesting if they have multiple colors in them. Also, one parent is red, and one parent is green, so at least in theory, the offspring could wind up anywhere in between the two, which makes it almost realistic or something.
Question 2. How many rows and columns of seeds should he make if he wants to place the seeds as far apart from one another as possible, but in a triangular/hexagonal grid instead, as in Figure 2?

Figure 2
Extra credit. How many of the 38 seeds Mr. Subjunctive plants will actually germinate and grow long enough to flower and produce their own seeds? Explain your answer.

Answers are below.

 


 


 

ANSWERS:

Question 1. Although we could just plant a single row of 38 seedlings down the center of the rectangle and call it done, the seedlings would have to be very close together in the row, with a lot of wasted space on either side, so they'll crowd one another out. In order to give each seed as much space as possible, we're going to use algebra to try and find a rectangle of seedlings that has the proportions which best fit the container.

Since we know that the container is a rectangle, 12 inches by 8 inches, we know that we're looking for a rectangle of seedlings with proportions similar to 12 x 8.

So. Let x = the number of seedlings in a column, parallel to the short side of the container. The number of seedlings in a row (parallel to the long side of the container) then has to be 1.5x, because the long side of the container is (12/8) = 1.5 times longer than the short side.

To solve for x and find out how many seedlings to plant per column, we multiply x (the number per column) with 1.5x (the number per row) and set that equal to 38 (the total number of seedlings we have):

38 = 1.5x²

Dividing both sides by 1.5:

25.3 = x²

Taking the square root of both sides to solve for x:

x = √(25.3) = 5 (more or less)

(3/2)x = 7.5 (more or less)

So the most evenly-spaced gridded arrangement would be five rows of eight seedlings, with two empty spaces somewhere in the grid, as in Figure 3:

Figure 3. Solution to Question 1.

Question 2. Although the whole triangular-grid thing is unusual and scary, we can look at this as just the sum of two rectangles. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Here, the red seedlings are arranged as a 4x3 rectangle, while the green seedlings are in a 3x2 rectangle. When looking at the red and green seedlings combined, though, they're still in a triangular grid: we're just looking at them as two separate rectangles, added together, because that makes it possible to calculate what we need to calculate.
The outer rectangle will have x rows and y columns; the inner rectangle will then have (x-1) rows and (y-1) columns because . . . it just kind of has to?²

So, the seedlings in the outer rectangle = xy.

The seedlings in the inner rectangle = (x-1)(y-1) = xy-x-y+1.

The sum of the seedlings in the two rectangles combined should be equal to the number of seedlings we have, so:

38 = (xy) + (xy-x-y+1)
38 = xy+xy-x-y+1
38 = 2xy-x-y+1

Well. We're not going to be able to solve it looking like that. So let's think about what we know of x and y, compared to one another.

If we call the short side y, then we know that x=1.5y, using the same reasoning as in the first question. So, everywhere that x appears in the original sum, we can substitute 1.5y instead, giving us this:

38 = 2(1.5y)y-(1.5y)-y+1
38 = 3y²-1.5y-y+1
38 = 3y²-2.5y+1

Subtracting 38 from both sides:

0 = 3y²-2.5y-37

Which is a quadratic equation, and those are easily solved in the internet age.³ Putting in the numbers a=3, b=-2.5, and c=-37, the formula gives two possible answers for y:

3.953 blah blah blah, and
-3.120 blah blah blah.

As interesting as it might be to try to plant negative three rows of seedlings, or 3.95 rows, for that matter, for our purposes there's only one valid answer, which is that y is basically equal to 4.

If y=4, then x has to be (1.5)(4) = 6.

So the large rectangle is 6 columns by 4 rows --

Figure 6
Making the small rectangle 5 columns by 3 rows --

Figure 7
Which means 24 in the large rectangle and 15 in the small rectangle. 24 plus 15 is 39, and we only have 38 seedlings, so one of the holes will have to be empty, as in figure 8.

Figure 8. Solution to Question 2.
Extra credit.
The answer is zero, because Mr. Subjunctive has never attempted to germinate Cryptbergia seeds before, and couldn't find anything on the internet to tell him how to do it, so he's probably going about this completely wrong. There's a possibility that the seeds were already dead by the time he noticed them, also.

I would also accept: zero, because however many of them germinate and grow, they're just going to get scale, thrips, or fungus and be thrown out anyway.

Special note regarding algebra: all kidding aside, though, algebra is way more useful in day to day life than you might think. Trigonometry is way overrated, and I don't think I've ever needed calculus or differential equations for anything outside of schoolwork (which is lucky, 'cause I no longer remember how to do any of it), and arithmetic is trivial, what with calculators and Google and all,⁴ but algebra comes up all the time and really is just as useful as your algebra teachers always told you it would be.

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¹ What kind of seeds? Well, if you must know, I tried to cross the Cryptbergia x rubra with the Billbergia nutans that was blooming at the same time, making them technically some sort of Cryptbergia. Let's call them Cryptbergia x subjunctiva. Here's what the dried inflorescences looked like:


And here is what the seeds looked like, with the dead flower parts still attached:


The kind of seeds doesn't actually matter to the math, though, obviously.
² I know there's nothing in the whole triangular-grid concept that would prevent us from extending the inner rectangle on one side, like in Figure 5:

Figure 5. Here we've got the same 4x3 rectangle of red seedlings, but now there's a 3x3 rectangle of green ones, instead of 3x2, because the green rectangle is not entirely enclosed by the red one. Instead, one row of green ones is outside the rectangle of red ones.
Which since you're so smart, why don't you just go ahead and figure out how to arrange the seedlings if the inner rectangle is extended on one side then. That oughta teach you a lesson about thinking independently.
³ This is the point where most math teachers would include something about the quadratic equation. While it's true that the quadratic equation can be a handy thing to know sometimes, 1) because of the internet, it's never more than a Google search away, so memorizing it is a lot less valuable than it used to be, and 2) Mr. Subjunctive isn't asking you this question because he cares about whether or not you know the quadratic equation; he just cares about how to arrange the holes he's going to poke in the vermiculite. No need to churn your butter by hand when you can just go to the supermarket.
⁴ In case you didn't know: you can type arithmetic problems ("2*8+13") directly into Google searches now, and it'll give you the answer ("29"). This is frequently more trouble than just using my trusty TI-81 calculator, so I don't actually Google for arithmetic that often, but still. Nice to know the option is there.

Random plant event: Billbergia nutans

I probably shouldn't be posting this so soon after the cribplants post, because I'm unable to stop calling it "Bizzlebergia nutans, also known as biatchz tearz" in my head. But: it's blooming. That counts as a thing happening. When things happen, you have to blog about them: those are the rules. So biatchz tearz it is.¹

Billbergia nutans has very sneakily become one of my favorite plants, despite its relative dullness for most of the year. Part of this is because when it does decide to do something, it becomes very interesting -- seriously, five different colors on the same inflorescence! -- and part of it is because it's so undemanding to grow.²

This time around, instead of a single bloom spike, I've gotten at least seven. I'm not sure if this is all attributable to it being larger; I've also been fertilizing it pretty heavily since about August or September, and I repotted it in September. I noticed the first bloom spike in I think mid-November, so the changes could be connected to the blooms.

Ominously, the Cryptbergia x rubra has continued to bloom throughout all this: the first inflorescence is still producing flowers, and a second Cryptbergia rosette in the same pot is developing a new inflorescence, so that will continue for a while. Naturally, I have attempted to cross-pollinate the two. I'll let you know if fruits / seeds / seedlings happen.

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¹ As a side note, I looked at some lists of houseplants through gizoogle, just to see if there were any other particularly amusing name transformations to tell you about. Only a few worked for me, but that's probably just as well:

• Aglaonema (Chinese everchronic)
• Crassula ovata or Pachira aquatica (chedda tree)
• Chamaerops (European hustla palm)
• Cryptanthus (ghetto star)
• Cyrtomium falcatum (phat-leaved holly fern)
• Asplenium (birdz nest fern, mothafucka fern)

The search also yielded this, regarding the toxicity of poinsettias, which amused me:

A lil pimp took a dirt nap up in 1919 from smokin poinsettia. Currently, feedin experimentz indicate dat while poinsettia may cause a lil irritation, tha reportz of serious poisonings is pimped outly exaggerated.

There's something really wonderful about the sentence "A lil pimp took a dirt nap up in 1919 from smokin poinsettia."
² It doesn't hurt that it grows really quickly, too. Yearbook photos:
May 2010. 4" / 10 cm pot.
September 2011. 4" / 10 cm pot.

January 2012? 6" / 15 cm pot.

September 2012. 6" / 15 cm pot.

December 2012. 8" / 20 cm pot.

Grab Bag

Various mostly-seasonal items today, just 'cause.

Not quite a lawn ornament, technically, because it's not intended to be permanent (the season and amount of deterioriation suggest a Halloween decoration), but close enough. More people should have monsters in their yard. I think it would be good for everybody. (Especially the monster-facsimile-production industry.)

Speaking of monsters: it's poinsettia time again. Ugh.

The previously-mentioned Cryptbergia x rubra flowers have begun to open. I'm underwhelmed. The color isn't even as strong as on Billbergia nutans: both the green and the blue are washed-out. (Admittedly, this is also not a great photo, but the flowers are paler in reality than I was expecting.)

Speaking of the Billbergia nutans -- which has gotten enormous since it arrived two and a half years ago -- it has a flower spike developing on it. I'd really like for it to produce more than one of those at a time, for photographic purposes, but I suppose there's still time.

I have previously reported being unable to smell Freesias. I could smell this particular batch, though. To me, they smelled like Froot Loops, which may or may not be standard. (One person described the smell that way in the previous Freesia post, so . . . possibly.) There may also have been interference from other flowers on the table -- there were tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) and cyclamen and I'm not sure what all else. But so I may not be genetically incapable of smelling Freesia after all. Which I guess is a good thing.

It may not be easy to see from the picture, but what we have here is an artificial tree, constructed around a mechanism that blows tiny styrofoam balls up into the air above the tree, so that they fall down on it like snow. Some collect in the branches, some stick to ornaments via static electricity, and some fall down through the tree to the base, where a pump sucks them in and blows them back up through the tube again. I would have loved the fuck out of this when I was a kid. I bet it's also super-entertaining for households containing static-prone black cats that like to climb things.

The down side: they're expensive. Just the mechanism alone is $200, and then you have to buy a fake tree to cover up the mechanism. It also requires a large floor area, so all the styrofoam balls can be collected (though I bet you some of them find their way under the couch regardless). And of course there's the part where it's hard to decide whether it's cool, or kitschy, or so kitschy that it loops around and meets cool from the other side. I mean, tiny non-biodegradable styrofoam balls pretending to be snow, being propelled into the air by an electric motor that probably ultimately gets its energy from burning coal, so they can fall on non-biodegradable plastic pretending to be a tree! It's so early-21st-century!

Kitsch or not, I want, like, five of them, so I can point them all at one another and have a tiny styrofoam blizzard down in the basement whenever I want. (I suppose it would have to go next to the peat bog.) Anybody who wants to donate $1000 to make this possible should do so via the donation button at top right. I promise to take lots of pictures.

Random plant event: Cryptbergia x rubra

Discovered this on Saturday (3 Nov); the pot contains multiple rosettes, but only the one is blooming. I don't have a particularly good idea what the flowers are supposed to look like when they appear: Google comes up pretty much empty on photos, and what photos it does have are tiny, just barely large enough to show that they take more after the Billbergia side of the family (green with blue margins, on a tall stalk with red or pink bracts) than the Cryptanthus one (typically white, short, and bractless).

So we'll see what happens. If I am spectacularly lucky, there's a possibility that I might be able to cross this with a Cryptanthus that's starting to bloom in the basement and get seedlings, though 1) it's kind of a long shot, and 2) I'm not even sure that this is something I should be hoping for, considering the current seedling situation.

Five Plants I'm Not Currently Mad At (A through G)

Just before bringing all the plants inside for the winter, I spent about a week trying to get some updated photos. Though a tedious and exhausting process, which is still not over yet (I'm still cropping and color-editing, etc.), I've made enough progress editing the new crop of photos that I can start posting a few of them.

This has been a terrible year for the plant collection, mostly because of the whole scale thing, but also in terms of just having accumulated too many plants to comfortably care for. Consequently, I've spent a lot of time being frustrated and angry, which is hard on me and the plants both, which you already know. In an attempt to make myself feel a little better about things, here are five plants that aren't upsetting me lately and have been here long enough that they could have upset me, if they'd really wanted to. This is just what was in the first part of the alphabet: I'm only up to the Gs on the photo-editing. Also, I'm trying to focus on stuff I haven't talked about lately. So, Coffea arabica is doing wonderfully for me, but it's not on the list because you've seen it a lot this year already (here, here, and here).

1. Cryptbergia x rubra

Date: September 2012.
Pot size: 6" / 15 cm.
The color, it's true, is not as strong as it was when I first got the plant:

Date: August 2010.
Pot size: 4" / 10 cm.
Presently I have it in an east window, which isn't strong enough light to maintain the color, but it's at least alive, it's grown a lot, and it's not been any trouble so far. The care is basically the same as for most of my plants: I water every couple weeks, giving it a good flushing and then splashing some fertilizer on top (probably not the ideal way to fertilize, but nothing about my setup is ideal). No pests in two years; hopefully that will continue. It gets whatever temperature and humidity is prevailing in the living room at any given moment.

It's offsetting a little bit, true to the Billbergia side of the family, but I haven't yet tried to propagate it yet.


2. Ctenanthe burle-marxii

Date: September 2012.
Pot size: 6" / 15 cm.

(As above.)
I may never actually know what the real name for this plant is: I've seen it Ctenanthe burle-marxii and Stromanthe burle-marxii, as well as assorted other ways (as a cultivar name 'Burle Marx,' with or without the hyphen, occasionally identified as a Calathea, etc.). Whatever it is, it seems to like it here.

Date: April or May 2009.
This is the original specimen; it wasn't potted up until after it outgrew the terrarium.
For something from the Marantaceae, this is damn near miraculous, actually. Not only is there this plant in the 6-inch pot, but I have seven others in 4-inch pots, all created from divisions of the original.

Care is pretty much the usual: water every two weeks, prevailing humidity and temperature. It gets artificial light, down in the basement, which is surprisingly adequate. There may have been minor spider mite problems once a while ago, but minor spider mite problems are extremely small potatoes now, now that I have the scale outbreak for perspective. The only issue I've had with it is, after a certain point, they do get sort of rootbound, and when they're rootbound, they dry out more than they should between waterings. I don't think I've ever lost a plant to that, but the leaves curl up and eventually dry and fall off. Of course, once that starts happening, you only need to up-pot or divide the plant and then everything's good again.


3. Euphorbia NOID (maybe E. ingens?)

Date: September 2012.
Pot size: about 7" / 18 cm.
It's not that this one's so amazing, exactly, as that this has been a bad year for my Euphorbias specifically: I have fungus problems on E. drupifera, half of the E. miliis, and E. bougheyi variegata. The E. tortilis, E. flanaganii, E. pseudocactus, and E. grandicornis have all etiolated and look sad. E. lactea fell over and severed an arm. And so on. It's not a complete disaster: a different NOID, E. ammak, multiple E. trigonas, and multiple E. tirucallis are all doing well. But as a group, it's been a bad year for the genus.

This one bucked the general trend; it hadn't been seeming like a very good idea until this summer. For one thing, it hadn't grown at all, in more than a year. This summer, it got to go outside, which is apparently what it had been waiting for all along -- it's not a huge amount of new growth, but it's something. (Everything above the constrictions near the top of the stems is new as of this summer.) I'm assuming that similar growth happened below the soil line -- when I first bought it, I checked to see if it needed a bigger pot, and not only did it not need a bigger pot, but the plants were barely even rooted.

Date: January 2011.
Pot size: about 8" / 20 cm.
Aside from being unresponsive, it's been an okay plant. No rot, no bugs, no problems. I had it in a west window previously, this being the best I could do. Having seen what it's capable of if properly motivated, I've now given it a spot in the small south window in the living room. When it was indoors before, it had been getting water every two or four weeks, depending on how quickly it seemed to be drying out. No special considerations for temperature or humidity. I haven't tried to propagate it yet, obviously (you can see from the photo that it hasn't been cut at all), but at least it's trying to get along, which is more than I can say for some Euphorbias.


4. Begonia 'Puffy Clouds'

Date: September 2012.
Pot size: about 4.5" / 11.5 cm.
'Puffy Clouds' and I have never gotten along all that well, probably because I wasn't giving it enough light -- for most of the time I've had it, it only got artificial light, and probably not as much of it as it wanted -- but things have been better since it got moved to an east window in the living room.

Date: August 2010. This is what it looked like when it got here, but I cut it back (and tried unsuccessfully to propagate it) almost immediately. Also a stem or two resprouted and then died before I had the sense to move the plant, leading to the current picture.
Pot size: 4" / 10 cm (diagonal).
I'm not saying I love it even now, but I'm appreciating Begonias a lot more than I used to. (In retrospect, starting with B. rex-cultorum varieties was probably the worst possible way to get reacquainted with the genus.) I'm optimistic that the recent strong growth will continue. Worse things could happen.

It's been getting the standard care: water every two weeks (which is probably not quite often enough), a little splash of fertilizer along with the water, light from an east window, and the temperature and humidity that everyone else is getting. To its credit, everything that's ever been wrong with B. 'Puffy Clouds' has been my fault: the plant itself seems easy-going enough if you don't torture it.


5. Ficus lyrata

Date: September 2012.
Pot size: 10" / 26 cm.
And, finally, Ficus lyrata. Nobody ever seems to be that into F. lyrata. I mean, the books all dutifully mention it, and they're for sale often enough that I don't think I'd have much trouble finding one to buy, but I never hear anybody saying that it's their favorite plant. Hell, I never hear anybody saying they think F. lyrata is even nice or interesting or anything like that, unlike F. elastica, F. binnendijkii, or F. benjamina.

And yet, you know, F. lyrata is not that bad. A little goofy-looking, perhaps, but the leaves get huge, it's been, if anything, a little easier for me than F. elastica (though weirdly not as easy as F. benjamina, which I'm also appreciating a lot more these days than I ever thought I would), and there've never been any huge problems. Every now and then a leaf clunks to the floor, and I apparently had mealybugs on it once, though I no longer remember that happening. (It's mentioned in this post.) That's about it.

Date: November 2007.
Pot size: 6" / 15 cm?
It's got a spot near the living room south window, where it doesn't really get much actual sunlight, but it makes do. I water every 2 or 4 weeks, depending on how fast it's dried out -- to the plant's credit, it doesn't seem to be particularly shaken if I make it wait a little longer than it would like. It's only been repotted once, so it's probably pretty rootbound, but I've been hesitant to move it up again because I'm not sure I want to encourage it -- at some point, it's going to be too big to fit inside the house, and I suppose that's when I'm going to have to learn how to air-layer.


Other plants that aren't making me angry at the moment:

Agave americana 'Medio-picta alba'
Agave lophantha 'Quadricolor'
Agave victoriae-reginae
Aglaonema 'Cory'
Aloe NOID which might be 'Blue Elf'
Ananas lucidus
Anthurium NOID (red-violet flower)
Araucaria bidwillii
Asplundia 'Jungle Drum'
Begonia, NOID cane-type
Begonia x erythrophylla
Billbergia nutans
Browningia hertlingiana
Ceropegia woodii, variegated
Chamaedorea metallica
Coffea arabica
Crassula perforata var. falcata
Dracaena deremensis 'Janet Craig Compacta'
Dracaena fragrans 'Sol'
Epipremnum aureum 'N'Joy'
Episcia 'Coco'
Episcia 'Suomi'
Euphorbia ammak
Euphorbia NOID (the one I refer to as "E. kokopelli")
Euphorbia tirucalli 'Firesticks'
Euphorbia trigona
Ficus benjamina 'Margarita'
Ficus benjamina, NOID variegated

That isn't necessarily an exhaustive list, within the A-G section of the alphabet; those are just the ones I happened to have taken pictures of and that I've been finding generally pleasing lately.

New Plants

I guess it's that time again already. I don't feel like I've been acquiring new plants that quickly, but apparently so (mainly through trades). And the ones I'm going to talk about are just the more interesting ones: there have been others.

Also, just to explain: if you sent me the plant in question by trade or other private arrangement, I don't identify who you are in the post because I figure you may not want all of my readers knowing that you have them and pestering you for trades. Not that that would probably happen. But just, you know, for the sake of maintaining privacy, I figure it's best to let everybody decide that for themselves. If you find that you want to claim one or more of these as your own contributions to the Subjunctive Botanical Gardens in the comments, feel free.

So okay. Here we go.

Justicia scheidweileri 'Maracas.'
A couple of these plants are so new that I'd never even heard of them before, and Justicia scheidweileri (sometimes Porphyrocoma pohliana) is one of those. I only have this one because I saw one in a photo someone e-mailed me, and asked about it, and the person very generously sent me one without me even asking for it. I still don't exactly know how to take care of it, but I figure I can try default tropical plant care until I know something more specific. They're related to shrimp plants (Justicia and Pachystachys spp.).

They're apparently mildly invasive when grown outdoors; most of the davesgarden.com comments are about their tendency to throw seedlings all over the place.

Synadenium grantii var. rubrum.
The reader will be forgiven if s/he doesn't see why this is a big deal, but I've wanted this plant forever, so I was thrilled to get a big honking cutting by trade. I cut it into four pieces (the above photo is of the topmost piece), stripped the leaves off of the bottom few inches of each piece, planted it into wet soil, and stuck it under some fluorescent lights in the basement, and all four pieces are now sprouting new growing tips. Though one of the four did defoliate first.

As the regular Synadenium grantii is a personal favorite, and has been started and restarted and restarted from a single small cutting three years ago, I fully expect to have lots of these very shortly too.

Philodendron hederaceum NOID cv.
This one jumped out at me when I saw it in the grocery store a few weeks ago; I've seen multiple types of coloration on Philodendron hederaceum, but this is the first one I've seen that was speckled. It's not especially flashy, but it was relatively cheap, and I'd never seen it before, even in photos, so I got it.

There's a tiny bit of uncertainty in my mind about whether or not it's diseased (surely if there were an actual new variety, I'd have seen it somewhere on-line before seeing it in the store, right?), but that's probably just me being paranoid about admiring any variegated plants, since the variegated Ipomoea a couple weeks ago, and the comment storm that ensued.

Cryptbergia x rubra.
Both Wikipedia and GlasshouseWorks say this plant is a cross between Cryptanthus bahianus and Billbergia nutans. I like Cryptanthus, I like Billbergia, I like intergeneric hybrids, so this was a natural to try to trade for.

Aloe 'Grassy Lassie.'
I've also gotten even more Aloes. 'Grassy Lassie' was a trade. I've seen some pictures on-line that make it look really stunning when in flower, not that I expect to see flowers indoors.

Aloe gastrolea Gasteraloe x 'Midnight.'
The remaining three two and a half Aloes all came from a new place (new to me, not new to the area), Reha Greenhouses, in Wellman, IA. They had a lot of interesting plants, tending toward succulents and old, easily-propagated passalong-type plants. A. gastrolea Gasteraloe x 'Midnight' is maybe the least interesting of the three Aloes, but its leaves do have a weird texture, and I don't have anything like it, so it got to come home with me.

Aloe x 'Pink Blush.'
'Pink Blush' is one of the Proven Winners Aloe varieties; they have twenty-two listed on their website at the moment, including also 'Grassy Lassie' and 'Fire Ranch' (which Karen715 has recently blogged about). It was sort of an obvious one to buy -- the picture doesn't show it well, but the leaf edges are pink, and it looks cool in person.

Aloe x 'Silver Ridge.'
'Silver Ridge' is also a Proven Winners plant, and although it's not as flashy as 'Pink Blush,' it's still mighty cool. Both 'Pink Blush' and 'Silver Ridge' have a very weird, sort of disturbing texture to the leaves, which is maybe easiest to see in the 'Silver Ridge' picture. Or if you can't see it there, look at the Proven Winners site. They have close-up photos of everything. (And, he noted with some disgust, no non-close-up photos of anything, or at least not the things I was interested in. Aloe 'Donnie' is still totally going on the want list, though.)

Euphorbia flanaganii var. cristata.
Euphorbia flanaganii var. cristata is the plant with the most interesting acquisition story: I got it from Cactus Jungle, as my prize for winning an identify-this-weird-object contest. Which I wasn't even sure was a real contest, at the time. (Sometimes it's hard to tell if Cactus Blog is being serious or sarcastic. Does anybody else have that problem?) Also I'd done a couple hours of Google image searching before making my guess (All you people with jobs are too busy to spend two hours Googling to win a $10 gift card, so who's the unemployed loser now, yo?), which maybe counts as cheating, but even if it does, I'm not giving the plant back.

I'd wanted one of these for a few months now; I passed some up at Lowe's a few months ago, then changed my mind and decided I wanted one after all. Unfortunately, by the time I got back, they didn't have them anymore. So I'd been trying to get one again. Cactus Jungle didn't just happen to send me a plant I really, really wanted: I sent them a list of like twenty plants, prioritized according to how badly I wanted them, and of the things they were willing to let me have, this was highest on my list. Which was sort of a roundabout way of doing it, but what would you have had me do, accept a plant chosen at random?

Anyway. So that was all very nice, and the box was well-packed and the plant was undamaged and pest-free as far as I can tell, so that was all a pleasant surprise.

Finally, Kalanchoe prolifera:

Kalanchoe prolifera stump. Yes, I know what it looks like. You do too, obviously, so let's not accuse anybody of having smutty minds. It was an accident of photography, and that's all it was.
Kalanchoe prolifera is another plant I'd never even heard of, prior to receiving it by trade. My trader sent a big section of stem, saying that basically any part of the plant (stem cuttings, isolated leaves, pieces of stem) could produce a new plant, which makes me wish I'd cut it up more first. The stump started to sprout more or less right away, from each of the nodes, but it's since changed its mind about most of those; the stump has been dying back slowly from the top, and only one node now has any growth on it.


I don't know what happens next, nor do I know whether the plant will be even remotely attractive if it does thrive.

I also don't know why there's a Kalanchoe prolifera but not a Kalanchoe prochoicera. (Are plant names really the place for taxonomists to be taking sides on abortion?)¹

The pictures of K. prolifera that are out there make it look plausibly decorative, if enormous, with big, pinnate, succulent leaves. (E.g.: it's about 4/5 of the way down the page.) We'll see how it goes.

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¹ I know they're not. I'm being funny.
Not, you know, very funny. But still. Making the effort.