Maybe not entirely missing from retail. . . .

I've been on the lookout this spring for the plants from last fall/winter's Missing From retail series, just to see how absent they really are. For the most part, the plants I said were missing around here still are, but there have been a few sightings.

I guess Cyperus spp. have been around every year and I just wasn't paying attention until this one, because I've seen them in two stores so far, one of which was the ex-job. If they've got them this year, they must have had them in previous years.

Cyperus involucratus 'Baby Tut.'
I've considered buying a Cyperus, though so far I've managed to talk myself out of it, on the grounds that they'll die the first time they dry out. But there's a great "person" possibility for profile-writing, so I might do it anyway, just so I can say I have some actual experience with the plant and write the profile.

I've also seen some Eucomis bulbs, though at Costco, not any of the local garden centers. I'm not sure what that means. I've been very, very close to buying those, too, and the only thing that's stopped me has been that they were initially $12 for 9 plants, and I wasn't sure I wanted nine more of anything, particularly not nine more of a plant that I wasn't sure would be able to grow in the first place.

Costco also had Crinums, I think. Not at all interested in those.

The ex-job has Cobaea scandens seeds.

I don't think I'm particularly interested in Cobaea -- everybody made it sound like more trouble than it's worth, and please note the small print on the package ("10' - 70' tall;" the metric equivalent is 3-21 m) -- but nevertheless, they exist, relatively close by.

There have been plenty of Bougainvilleas around town this year; either they've gotten more popular lately, or I hadn't been paying close enough attention before. I doubt many of the customers buying them are intending to grow them indoors, though. (Ditto for Catharanthus, Pittosporum, Fuchsia, Euonymous, Limonium, Acorus, Acalypha, Pentas, Nicotiana, and Liriope, all of which I've seen at least once this year.)

Shrimp plants (Justicia spp. and a few other genera) are showing up all over the place. They've never been completely absent, but I'm seeing new species and new forms this year. (For example: I saw a topiary standard shrimp plant this year.) Manettia luteo-rubra is showing up a lot more too, for some reason.

I've seen quite a few Dyckias in Iowa this year, mostly D. 'Raspberry Ice,' which I think genuinely is a new thing. I'm pretty sure I would already have fifty of them, if they'd been available in Iowa before this. I haven't bought any, because I'm not entirely sure I can grow them still. The first one I had died more or less immediately, and the second one has both survived for a full year and grown substantially larger, but I still don't feel like we've really reached an understanding.

Dyckia no-name F2 hybrid of 'Burgundy Ice,' as of last September. It's substantially larger than this now.
Faucaria spp. are here and there, though I have zero interest in them. (Too closely related to stuff like Lithops and Fenestraria.) Most of the ones I've seen this year have been at Reha's, in Wellman, IA. Ditto for Gibasis geniculata: they're around, mostly at Reha's, and I have no interest.


Faucaria sp. (pic is from a previous year, though)
And then finally, the ex-job had a couple pots of Russelia equisetiformis the last time I was there. They were much too large to pose a serious temptation, never mind the question of whether Russelia could be successfully overwintered indoors in Iowa, but they're neat-looking plants, even when not in bloom.

Russelia equisetiformis.

Newish plants

This last month or so is apparently the dawning of the Age of Gesneriads, as far as my personal collection goes. I've gotten a lot of them in trades recently, including my first Columneas, Nautilocalyxes, Codonanthes, Kohlerias, and Chirita. Mostly Episcias, though, because I feel safest with Episcias.

This isn't going to be an exhaustive list of everything I've gotten, because 1) there are too many of them to do that, and 2) some of them literally died before I could get a picture taken.¹ These are just the ones I find most interesting.

First up, since I teased you about the gesneriads, let's begin with the gesneriad I'm most excited about. This is Columnea orientandina:

Columnea orientandina.
Why am I so excited about it? I don't know. It just seems cool. All the leaves have that red spot on the tip of the underside, the flowers are smallish but a nice clear yellow --


-- and it just seems, you know, likeable. Possibly the main reason I'm interested in it is because I'd never heard of anything like it before.

Dyckia 'La Rioja.'
This is one of the ones that died, which was tragic and not-tragic simultaneously. The tragic part is that it was a weird color, plus a bromeliad genus that's new to me, and I think Dyckias have a really cool shape to them. It's not tragic in that the hooks on the leaf margins are wicked sharp, and it would have been all but impossible to handle this plant without hurting myself. A lot.

Hatiora NOID.
The Hatiora (better known as Easter cactus, or Rhipsalidopsis²) is one I actually bought. I've wanted an Easter cactus for some time now, but I've never seen one for sale around here until a few weeks ago. They only had two, and both were more or less bloomed-out, but this was such a nice color (the photo doesn't do it justice; it's sort of peach/orange/coral), and I get so few opportunities to buy them, that I went for it anyway. Paid $10 or $11 at Earl May, which is excessive for a plant this small, especially one that's already mostly bloomed-out, but at least now I have it. So far, contrary to the rumors about Easter cacti, it's held together and not disintegrated into a pile of unconnected segments.

Hatiora NOID.
This, on the other hand, is an Easter cactus I got via trade, so essentially for free, from a reader. You'll notice that it's way bigger and nicer. It will have magenta flowers, assuming that I can get it to flower next spring.

Kohleria 'Peridots Kitlope.' Or maybe 'Peridot's Kitlope.' Not sure about the apostrophe.
I forget what it was (possibly a post at Andrew's?), but at some point not that long ago, I decided that I needed to have a Kohleria, so I started trying to get one. I now have three, of which this is the largest. The person who sent it to me was not enthusiastic about the genus, for reasons which were either forgotten or unspecified, but I think I have pretty nearly ideal conditions for it in the basement, so we will see what I think of it after a decent interval of time has elapsed.

Close-up of Kohleria 'Peridot[']s Kitlope' flower.

Nautilocalyx forgetii.
I know next to nothing about Nautilocalyx. So far, one unrooted cutting of N. pemphidius died almost immediately, and this unrooted cutting of N. forgetii seems to be doing okay. Even if it does well for me, it's not likely to be fascinating -- the flowers are smallish and white -- but it's novel. And maybe it'll do well for me. That always makes me like plants better.

Chirita 'Deco.'
Since this picture was taken, the plant seems to be preparing a flower bud, which I'll have to get a picture of so I can show you, I guess.

Billbergia 'Foster's Striate.'
Easily one of the biggest plants I've ever received by trade (that's a 6-inch / 15 cm pot it's in), and if I can ever get flowers, that should be pretty awesome. It might be awesome even without flowers, actually. There are some concerns that I might not have a bright enough spot for it, but so far it seems to be hanging in there.

Episcia 'Pink Acajou.'
One of the more interesting Episcias.

Episcia 'Silver Skies.'
And another.

Episcia 'Faded Jade.'
There were seriously a ton of Episcias.

Episcia 'Kempenfest.'
The USPS basically backed a truck up to the house and I went in the back of the truck with a shovel and just shoveled Episcias out for an hour or two.

Finally, for the pièce de résistance --

Pereskia godseffiana.
I knew of Pereskias before this, from pictures, but had never been that interested. So it's a cactus with leaves,³ big deal. The reality in person is much stranger. First of all, I was not prepared for the color. Pereskias are usually green, but this is hot pink and brownish yellow. It looked more like a badly-wilted pink poinsettia than a cactus. Second, even though there are leaves, there are also thorns/spines/whatever, which are seriously sharp, and hide at the base of the leaves, which wouldn't be that big of a problem except that I had to try to bend the leaves upward in order to keep from planting them along with the stem, and they don't really want to bend, so I was stabbing myself repeatedly while trying to pot the cutting up.

I'm a little worried about it: they're supposed to be incredibly easy to root, but nothing seems to have happened so far, and the leaves are a little floppier now than they were, which is possibly a bad sign. Granted, it's only been here a week, and I should give it time.

If it does work out like it's supposed to, then I will have a fast-growing, hot pink and brownish yellow plant on my hands that longs to be a thirty-foot vine that bristles with thorns.

-

¹ Not really my fault or the sender's fault. First of all, they weren't a trade so much as a gift, and there were time constraints on it such that they had to be shipped during a cold spell in late April. They're still in the process of sorting themselves out, as far as who's going to live and who's going to die, but at the moment about 2/3 of that group are still technically alive. How many of them will stay that way, on the other hand, I have no idea.
² But Plant List will back me up on Rhipsalidopsis being a botanically obsolete name.
³ If memory serves, Pereskias are thought to be the living group of cacti most similar to the ancestral cactus from which all the others descended. Hence, they still have actual leaves, and need a fair amount of water, and so on.

Elsewhere on the Web

Plant Chaser: Look Jane Look
Summary: Somewhere in the Philippines, a Dyckia 'Platyphylla' blooms. Includes some surprisingly neat close-up photos of the true flowers.

The Scientist Gardener: Better Chemistry Through Breeding
Summary: About the genetic and chemical basis for the colors of peppers and other plants, with pretty pictures.

Cactus Blog: Bitter Root
Summary: Pretty pictures of Lewisia cvv.

One of my Lewisia pictures, from long ago.
Freewill Applicator: On Corporate Law
Summary: Probably best explained by the first two sentences:

Corporate law is the story of made-up characters and their relationships. And it is the story of the real people whose duty is to do what the imaginary characters need.

And then it kinda goes on from there. Nothing to do with plants, but I liked it.

The Variegated Thumb: Plant Find: The Cucumber Orchid
Summary: Zach has a Dockrillia cucumerina now, a plant I'd never heard of before and wouldn't believe in if he didn't have pictures.

The Consumerist: Don't UPS Drivers Realize Customers Have Security Cameras?
Summary: Please don't send me plants via UPS ever, thanks.

The Planetary Society Blog: A dog-bone-shaped asteroid's two moons: Kleopatra, Cleoselene, and Alexhelios (via Bad Astronomy)
Summary: There's an asteroid orbiting the sun that's shaped like a dog bone and has two moons. The main point of interest is the animation showing the three objects together.

~

And one entire blog:

Fuzzy Foliage
Summary: Blog about gesneriads in general, but Saintpaulias in particular. If you have questions about the African Violet Society of America, this is the person to ask. Or at least a person to ask.