Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 2.1-2.4

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

Results for matches 1.49-1.52:

In match 1.49, you bastards chose Adenium obesum over Episcia cvv., by a margin of 73 to 44, in what I am forced to conclude was a horribly misguided attempt to upset me. WELL IT DIDN'T WORK! I'M FINE! NOT UPSET AT ALL!²
Match 1.50 was quite close, a lot closer than I expected it would be, but in the end, Zamioculcas zamiifolia scraped together a victory over Alocasia amazonica 'Polly.' The score was 63 to 49.

Adenium and Zamioculcas will throw down in match 2.25, on 13 October.

Ficus benjamina cvv. defeated Begonia rex-cultorum in match 1.51, by a score of 70 to 44.
Finally, match 1.52 looked for a while like it was going to be a blowout -- Haworthia cvv. was at one point getting nearly 81% of the vote against Asplenium nidus / A. antiquum -- but some Asplenium supporters showed up at the last minute and reduced Haworthia's lead. Haworthia still wins, though, 80 to 39.
Ficus benjamina cvv. and Haworthia cvv. go up against one another on 13 October as well, in match 2.26.

And now, we begin round two.

Match 2.1
Clivia miniata cvv. vs. small hybrid Vriesea cvv.

Top: Clivia miniata. (Picture by Guérin Nicolas at Wikimedia Commons.) Bottom: NOID cv.

(All unidentified Vriesea hybrids.)





Match 2.2
Cryptanthus cvv. (earth star) vs. Tradescantia pallida (purple heart)

Clockwise from top left: C. 'Elaine,' C. 'Black Mystic,' NOID, NOID, NOID.

(Both T. pallida.)





Match 2.3
Saintpaulia cvv. (African violet) vs. Echinopsis spp.

Saintpaulia cvv.
Top row, L-R: NOID, assorted NOIDs, NOID.
Middle row, L-R: NOID, NOID, NOID.
Bottom row, L-R: 'Harmony's Red Star,' 'Mellow Magic' close-up, NOID.

Unidentified Echinopsis sp. Probably.





Match 2.4
Epipremnum aureum cvv. (pothos) vs. Crassula ovata/argentea/arborescens (jade plants)

Clockwise from top left: Epipremnum aureum 'Neon,' 'Marble Queen,' 'N'Joy,' trained on a totem.

Clockwise from top left: variegated Crassula ovata, C. ovata 'Gollum,' C. arborescens var. undulatifolia, C. ovata.





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¹ I'm deciding according to a hypothetical situation in which all of my houseplants are gone, as are all the other houseplants of the world, except for one producer/supplier/retailer. Said person is offering to restock me with one or the other of the plants in question but refuses to give me both. Which one would I choose?
² (*sob*)

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 1.5-1.8

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

Match 1.5
Saintpaulia cvv. (African violet) vs. Hemigraphis exotica (purple waffle plant)

Saintpaulia cvv.
Top row, L-R: NOID, assorted NOIDs, NOID.
Middle row, L-R: NOID, NOID, NOID.
Bottom row, L-R: 'Harmony's Red Star,' 'Mellow Magic' close-up, NOID.

Hemigraphis exotica, species.





Match 1.6
Cyclamen persicum (florists' cyclamen) vs. Echinopsis spp.

Assorted NOID Cyclamen persicums.

Unidentified Echinopsis sp. Probably.





Match 1.7
Pachypodium spp. (Madagascar palm) vs. Epipremnum aureum cvv. (pothos)

L-R: P. lamerei, close-up of P. lamerei trunk, NOID.

Clockwise from top left: Epipremnum aureum 'Neon,' 'Marble Queen,' 'N'Joy,' trained on a totem.





Match 1.8
Scindapsus pictus (satin pothos) vs. Crassula ovata/argentea/arborescens (jade plants)

(All Scindapsus pictus, possibly different cvv.)

Clockwise from top left: variegated Crassula ovata, C. ovata 'Gollum,' C. arborescens var. undulatifolia, C. ovata.





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

Question for the Hive Mind: Cactus IDs

I'm either sick or underslept to the point of feeling sick on Sunday evening as I write this, so I don't have it in me to write very much. I've had these photos for a long time, and have been meaning to go to CactiGuide.com or somewhere and try to come up with IDs so I could use them for List posts, but I never did. If you have a guess on any of them, leave it in the comments. Or keep it to yourself. Whatever.

I, meanwhile, am going to go to bed early and hope that I'm just tired. It doesn't feel like tired -- every joint and muscle is achy, I have a headache, my face feels hot, my eyes and mouth are dry -- but this has happened before, once or twice a year for several years, and if I'm sick, it's the kind of sick that twelve straight hours of sleep usually cures.

There will be a mashup this afternoon; I wrote that post already.

Cactus NOID no. 5.


Cactus NOID no. 6. (Cephalocereus sp.?) Espostoa lanata?


Cactus NOID no. 7; Ferocactus sp.


Cactus NOID no. 8.


Cactus NOID no. 9. (Gymnocalycium?) Echinopsis sp.


Cactus NOID no. 10.


Cactus NOID no. 11. (Mammillaria sp.?) Echinocereus sp.


Cactus NOID no. 12 (tagged Ferocactus sp.).


Cactus NOID no. 13. (Melocactus sp.?)


Cactus NOID no. 14; Mammillaria sp.


Cactus NOID no. 15, with fruit; Mammillaria sp.


Cactus NOID no. 16; Mammillaria sp.

Random plant event: Ficus religiosa seedlings

Of the gazillions of seeds I got from seedman.com, back in April, very little seems to be working out so far. I got four Echinopsis peruviana seedlings still, which aren't really making any huge strides in any particular directions but which have, at least, grown enough to have their first thorns:

Photo: 30 May 2008
And then I got ten of the Ficus religiosa seeds to sprout, by bringing them to work, this being the biggest one:

Photo: 31 May 2008
Since I don't need ten Ficus religiosa seedlings, I was planning on bringing two home (one good one, and a spare in case something happened to the good one) and then leaving whatever else sprouted to be sold at work, kind of as payment for letting me use the space there.

The sucky part is that that's all there's been from the GASP (Great Annual Seed Project) so far. And I know the seeds, a lot of them, were supposed to be uneven germinators and everything, but I really thought I would have seen more than this by now. I'm not giving up on it, just disappointed. But I'll try to be patient, I guess.

Question for the Hive Mind: NOID succulents

Looking for identification on two plants today, plus there's an early result in the GASP project:

Succulent NOID #1:


NOID #1 has been around for at least a couple years; presumably it's looked better than this before. I'm assuming it's a succulent, even though it doesn't look much like one, because WCW says it's been grouped with the succulents since it arrived. She's never known what it is, and neither of us have seen anything like it before.

There's been talk of cutting it back and letting it, you know, get more normal-looking, but WCW and I don't want to do that until we know what it is. I did have a piece break off spontaneously, which I managed to root for a little while, though I think the cutting in question has been lost to rot already. Not sure. In any case, this has been bothering me for quite a while, so I'd be grateful if somebody had any ideas.

UPDATE: A reader has proposed Plectranthus ecklonii by e-mail, which seems to be in the right general neighborhood as far as leaf, leaf margin, and leaf arrangement, though the stem color and shape don't work, and it'd take a very unusual Plectranthus to grow so slowly and never flower in greenhouse conditions. P. ecklonii is also supposed to be a caudex-former, which we never saw in the two years or so that the plant was around, but there were a number of other cauduciform plants around, that had also been in the store since before I started working there, and our supplier did often do stuff like send boxes of "assorted" unidentified plants. It's plausible to me that this could have been in a box of "assorted cauduciforms," and that would explain why nobody knew what it was. (Explaining why a cauduciform plant didn't have a caudex is more complicated, though.) So I'm inclined to say that it's probably not P. ecklonii, but that P. ecklonii could be in the right neighborhood as far as genus or family.

(Close-up of leaves for NOID #1)

Succulent NOID #2:


NOID #2 actually does look a little familiar, but I can't place it. It's been in the same 6-inch hanging basket since I started working in August, and it was rootbound enough that you couldn't really water it: the water would run around the rootball right away without ever penetrating the soil. The plant didn't seem to mind this terribly, but I've felt bad about it, so yesterday I moved it up to the 8-inch pot in the picture. It has white, annoyingly sticky sap. The leaves turn slightly pinkish in full sun, and are tough but not very thick.

UPDATE: Was identified as Dischidia ruscifolia in the comments.

(Close-up of leaves for NOID #2)
Finally, the very first thing to happen with the GASP project is underway: I noticed this tiny, tiny sprout of Echinopsis peruviana (=Trichocereus peruvianus) yesterday. It doesn't look like much of anything in the picture, which is totally accurate: it doesn't look like much of anything in person, either. But it's still a sprout, so we're guardedly happy.