Question for the Hive Mind, Dynasty Edition

A few weeks back, the husband and I started watching the original Dynasty¹ on Amazon. I don't remember wanting to watch it when it originally ran, but it wouldn't have mattered if I had, because I was a child and it was forbidden. I was nevertheless very aware of the show, because it was a big deal (Dynasty was the top-rated show across all networks in the 1984-85 season, and in the top ten for three other seasons). Without ever watching it, I would have been able to tell you that there were characters named Alexis and Krystle, and they fought with one another a lot, and that the show was sort of generally glamorous and soapy. It seemed like people took it sort of seriously -- I remember reading stuff about it being trashy and shallow, and yet also collected a lot of nominations and awards, so clearly people thought it was "good" TV for the time.

So watching it now has been really eye-opening in ways it couldn't have been if I'd watched it then, because it is terrible. Like, astoundingly so. I won't deny that it's entertaining (the outfits alone, my god), but the writing is frequently nonsensical. Like, characters who start at come on, unlock the door, we can't settle our problems if you won't even talk to me will, 15 seconds later, find themselves at fine, I hope you rot in your locked room, with no attempt on the part of the actor or writer to show any kind of thought process bridging the two. Just boom, 180-degree turn. Dynasty seems to be a TV show written by people whose only knowledge of humans is from watching other TV shows. It's amazing.

Also, a lot of the technical stuff is remarkably amateurish. Like, I don't remember which episode it was in, but twice now, I've caught the microphone boom dipping into the top of the frame and they used the shot anyway. There are occasionally shots of jewelry to which crude animated sparkles have obviously been added, and periodically the film quality gets abruptly worse for a single scene, presumably because a shot had to be redone with a different camera(?). "Romantic" scenes are designated as such by the addition of a filter that makes every point of light into an "x," as in this example:

State of the art at the time, I'm sure. But it hasn't aged well.

However! There are some moments that make it all worthwhile, which are highly recommended to any readers who want to watch on Amazon.

For the first big Alexis-Krystle catfight, check out season 2, episode 16, at 41:25.²

Joan Collins "singing"³ and dancing in leather pants: season 4, episode 15, beginning at about 28:30.

Have you ever wanted to see Linda Evans and Joan Collins fighting in a lily pond?⁴ Season 3, episode 23, beginning at 27:05.

To see the most hilariously awful sex scene I've ever seen (and be warned: it is really, really bad; I'm not exaggerating "most awful"), go to season 2, episode 22, at 43:36. There's a shorter version on YouTube, but watch the long version if you can, because part of what makes it so wonderful / terrible is that it goes until you're like okay, I get it, sexy sexy, let's move on and then it keeps going, and going, and going.

My younger siblings, when shown the sex scene, compared it to watching a box turtle eating a strawberry,


which is so precisely correct that it delights me each time I think about it, and cannot be unseen once seen.

And finally, how about a dull cameo from former president Gerald Ford and his wife Betty for no reason at all? (Season 4, episode 11, 25:51. Stick around until 29:55 and you'll get a bonus Henry Kissinger.⁵)

Anyway. So I wouldn't exactly say I'm enjoying Dynasty, but I'm not not enjoying it either. Nothing will convince you that the past is truly another country like watching their television programs will. Dynasty's treatment of Steven Carrington (only like the second gay main-cast character in U.S. television ever, I think I read somewhere) isn't up to modern standards, but it's pretty progressive for the early 80s. (On the other hand, he's only gay part of the time, and it was apparently acceptable to use a certain anti-gay slur in prime-time TV in 1981,⁶ which shocked me a bit.)

Another thing that would never fly today is the amount of fur being worn by the characters (mostly Alexis). I wasn't even looking very hard, and still managed to find these examples within like ten minutes:

More than anything else, though, I notice that the treatment of women is astoundingly bad by modern standards. Not just rape -- though Dynasty is in fact super-rapey⁷ -- but if you took a drink every time a male character grabbed a female character roughly by the arm, to stop her from going somewhere, force her to go somewhere, or demonstrate his manly man-ness, you would literally die of alcohol poisoning somewhere in the early to middle first season. It's alarming. I don't think Krystle changes rooms without male assistance once in the entire first season. Depending on how much of an optimist you are, this can be depressing or heartening; I choose to think of it as heartening. Sure, things aren't so great for women now, but they used to be so much worse that you could show characters doing this kind of shit on the most-watched TV program at the time and not have to worry about the audience losing sympathy for the grabbers and rapists. Change does happen sometimes.

ANYWAY.

The reason we are actually here, though, is plant-related. I am occasionally surprised by the plant choices the set decorators make,⁸ but I can at least usually determine what they are. And yet there are two I can't identify.

The first is obviously enough a bromeliad of some kind, but I can't even narrow down a genus for it. Closest thing I can think of would be a Guzmania, but it's awfully big for a Guzmania. Maybe they were bigger in the 80s?

UPDATE: Anonymous in the comments suggests Guzmania wittmackii. I'm not 100% certain on the species, but a Guzmania of some kind seems likely. See comments for links to photos.

The second plant has been driving me crazy for weeks, because the set decorator really likes them, and sticks them all over the place, but I can't figure out what it is; it reminds me variously of Schefflera actinophylla (compound leaves with large leaflets), Polyscias balfouriana and P. scutellaria (large leaves, produced from cane cuttings), and Ficus spp. (leaf venation, bark color) but doesn't seem to be any of them for sure. The bark is wrong for Schefflera; compound leaves are wrong for Ficus, it doesn't look like any Polyscias I've ever seen.

It's possible that the reason I'm finding it so difficult is that they're not all the same species of plant. The overall "tuft of large compound leaves at the top of a long, bare stem" appearance is consistent from specimen to specimen, but there are differences in leaflet angles and coloration that makes me unsure. In particular, I'm not sure if the two plants in this shot are of the same species:

Adam Carrington (played by Gordon Thomson), left, with Tracy Kendall (Deborah Adair). They're both more or less evil.

The guy here is Mark Jennings (played by Geoffrey Scott); he's the most pointless character and I hate every scene he appears in.

80s fashion!

Joan Collins, enjoying a morning half-grapefruit, as all Dynasty characters were apparently legally required to; it's rare when a breakfast scene shows them eating anything else.

I don't hate her outfit, though. I would totally wear something like that for all my personal grapefruit-eating scenes, if I ever ate grapefruit.

UPDATE: Pattock points out in the comments that it's actually a papaya, not a grapefruit. I don't like papayas, so I would not be willing to eat papaya while wearing Joan Collins' outfit. PATSP regrets the error.

More Adam and Tracy.

So what do we think? Any guesses on either plant ID? Thoughts on Dynasty? Anything?

UPDATE: David Gray, in comments, proposed Bombax, which after a lot of looking around in search engines got me to Pseudobombax ellipticum, a few photos of which look enough like the plants in question that I'm prepared to consider the plant definitely ID'ed. See comments for links to photos.

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¹ There is also a . . . severely unnecessary-sounding reboot on the CW, which I have not seen, and cannot imagine ever wanting to see. 1981 Dynasty or nothing. Accept no substitutes.
² This is especially delicious because while I'm not 100% certain, I think that for some of the fighting, Joan Collins' stunt double is a man on whom the producers have put a wig, a dress, nail polish, and maybe a little makeup. It doesn't show up well in screencaps, unfortunately, but:

If true, the likely real reason is that they were having difficulty finding a stuntwoman of Joan Collins' proportions, but I prefer the magical realist interpretation, that Alexis is so enraged that she physically transforms, à la the Incredible Hulk.
³ More "talking in a lilting way," really, though apparently Collins actually can sing: she just wasn't doing it for this particular performance.
⁴ (heck yeah, you have)
⁵ (Of course Alexis Carrington would know Henry Kissinger socially.)
⁶ Yep, it's the one you're thinking of. The really bad one.
⁷ Blake, Jeff, Mark, and Adam all either commit or attempt rape at some point, and all four of them are intended to be sympathetic characters at least some of the time. I'm probably forgetting some, too. Dex, maybe? Nick Toscanni?
⁸ Here's what was hot, plant-wise, in the 1980s, as best as I can determine from watching all of two shows (I'm also including data from our hernia-surgery-driven re-watch of Star Trek: The Next Generation), in order of increasing surprise (to me) when it showed up on screen:
• Epipremnum aureum (pothos)
• Syngonium podophyllum (arrowhead vine), though I think some of them were artificial so maybe it doesn't count?
• The presence of palms wasn't a surprise, but the number of them were. I'm not good at palm IDs, so the only one I'm sure about is Caryota mitis (fishtail palm). I feel like I've noticed Caryota being more popular on recent TV as well, which is interesting if it's true: I've never had great experiences with them personally.
• Strelitzia nicolai (white bird of paradise)
• Dracaena marginata, Dracaena deremensis 'Janet Craig,' Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana'
• Hedera helix (English ivy)
• Schefflera actinophylla (umbrella tree)
• Spathiphyllum cvv. (peace lily), though mostly only the big cultivars, and not nearly as often as I expected
• Codiaeum variegatum (croton)
• Ficus benjamina (weeping fig)
• Dieffenbachia cvv. (dumb cane)
• Yucca guatemalensis (spineless yucca)
• Monstera deliciosa (split-leaf philodendron)
• Aechmea fasciata (silver vase plant) and bromeliads in general
• There was actually a plot line involving African violets, starting in the middle of season 4, though the way the show dealt with them, I suspect the writers didn't know that African violets (Saintpaulia cvv.) and violets (Viola spp.) are different, so I'm not sure this one should count either.
• Maranta leuconeura erythroneura (prayer plant)
• Pachira aquatica (money tree)
• Araucaria heterophylla (Norfolk Island pine)
• Fittonia albivenis (nerve plant)
• orchids in general, but mostly genera that aren't Phalaenopsis (in particular lots of Cymbidium)
• Philodendron erubescens 'Red Emerald' and the occasional self-heading Philodendron
• Cissus rhombifolia (grape ivy)
• large columnar cacti (e.g. Cereus peruvianus) and Euphorbias (e.g. E. ingens, E. trigona); presumably this is part of the 1980s southwestern obsession even though neither of these are native to the U.S. southwest
• Pachypodium spp. (Madagascar palm), in both Dynasty and ST:TNG
• Gynura aurantiaca (purple passion plant)
• Dynasty had a few Chamaedorea metallica, which surprised hell out of me, because I would definitely have remembered it if I'd seen any in stores or books at the time, and yet I'm positive I didn't encounter the species until the late 2000s.

Plants I expected to see a lot, based on my memories of the 1980s, and either didn't see at all or saw only very occasionally:
• Ficus lyrata (fiddle-leaf fig) and Ficus elastica (rubber plant)
• Crassula ovata (jade plant)
• Anthurium andreanum hybrids (there are some, but almost always as cut flowers, rather than entire plants)
• Strelitzia reginae (orange bird of paradise) (again, always as cut flowers)
• Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant, airplane plant, mala madre)
• Aglaonema cvv. (Chinese evergreen) (though there were a few)
• Tradescantia zebrina (wandering Jew)
• Asparagus cvv. (asparagus fern) (though Dynasty has a few in exterior shots, and there is an A. plumosus in an interior shot early in season 5)
• Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant) (there are a couple in Dynasty, just not many; Star Trek: TNG has several)
• Philodendron bipinnatifidum (split-leaf philodendron) (though Dynasty has some in outdoor landscaping shots because they filmed in California, where P. bipinnatifidum can grow outdoors, instead of Denver, where they cannot, even though the story is supposedly set in Denver)
• Cordyline fruticosa (ti plant)
• cane Begonia cvv.

Walkaways Part 18

None of these are quite as unusual as the Tillandsia dyeriana, but I thought they were interesting.

Anthurium 'Sensa.'

(close-up of flowers: new on left, old on right)
Anthurium 'Sensa' is the one I most wanted to buy, which makes little sense, really, since I already have a lot of Anthuriums, including a couple with similar spathe colors. I just have a hard time resisting Anthuriums, I think is the deal. It's still a nice color, though, and Anthuriums are particularly tempting to me now because I'm trying to cross mine and start seedlings, so I see a plant with a newly-emerged flower and all I can think about is all the pollen it's going to be producing, and how desperately I must have said pollen.

Sedum indicum var. yunnanense, crested form
Plant List says that the actual name is Sinocrassula yunnanensis. This didn't do a lot for me, though I suppose I can see how someone might find it interesting. From the internet, I see the main use of S. yunnanensis is as a rock garden plant (they're hardy to zone 7, googlegedly), but I ran into a few pictures of them in containers. They apparently never do much more than this, forming little clumps of rosettes.

Dieffenbachia 'Delilah.'
This picture didn't turn out anywhere near as well as I'd hoped it would. (There's a better one here.)

I probably shouldn't try to grow Dieffenbachias. It's not that I can't: with a few exceptions ('Camouflage,' 'Sterling'), they grow fine for me, as long as I keep them out of direct sun and warm, dry air.

Instead, the problem is that after growing well for a while, they'll reach the point where they're too tall and leggy to fit in their spot, or they're always threatening to fall over, or they just don't look good anymore, and then I have to decide what to do with them. I don't have the patience (or experience) for air-layering, so I've always just cut them back and tried to root the tops. Occasionally this has worked, but usually it doesn't. And the stumps are supposed to resprout: occasionally that has worked, but usually it doesn't. (Some varieties seem to be better about rooting and resprouting than others: 'Tropic Snow' does well, as does a NOID that resembles 'Triumph.') So 'Delilah' is appealing, but I think I'm going to have to wait on getting more dieffs until I've figured out how to air-layer them.

Adromischus maculatus.
I had a bad experience with a plant I think was an Adromischus, a few years ago when the plant obsession was just starting up. It stayed alive, but the new growth was weak and pale and it was obviously not getting enough light, so I gave up on it after about five months. I could probably do better now, because although I don't have southern exposure, I do have artificial lights. Perhaps someday.

Guzmania NOID.

Same plant, from top.
Finally, a Guzmania coloration I haven't seen before, and think is really pretty. No ID tag, though. Of course.

The good news is that Guzmanias are pretty easy to keep alive. The bad news is that their strong will to live means I don't treat mine particularly well, so they're not very big and they've never rebloomed. (I know about the apple trick. I just don't think my plants are strong enough to bloom, so I haven't pushed.) This is a fascinating (to me) variety, though: I really like the white/black/orange combination.

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 1.13-1.16

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 1.13
Ficus maclellandii (long leaf fig, alii fig) vs. Schefflera elegantissima (false aralia, Dizygotheca elegantissima)

(Ficus maclellandii.)

(Both Schefflera elegantissima.)





Match 1.14
Guzmania cvv. vs. Strelitzia nicolai/reginae (white/orange bird of paradise)

(Various unidentified Guzmania cvv.)

Clockwise from left: Strelitzia nicolai, S. reginae flower, S. reginae.





Match 1.15
Philodendron hederaceum cvv. (heart-leaf philodendron) vs. Syngonium podophyllum cvv. (arrowhead vine, nephthytis)

Clockwise from top left: Philodendron hederaceum 'Brasil,' P. hederaceum micans, NOID, P. hederaceum 'Aureum' or something similar, species, P. hederaceum 'Frilly Philly.'

Clockwise from top left: Syngonium podophyllum 'White Butterfly' (?), NOID (possibly 'Confetti'), 'Pink Margarita,' NOID.





Match 1.16
Dracaena fragrans cvv. (corn plant) vs. Saxifraga stolonifera (strawberry begonia)

Clockwise from top left: Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana,' 'Sol,' 'Massangeana,' 'Sol,' 'Massangeana.'

(Both Saxifraga stolonifera.)





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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?

List: Houseplants Which are Also Epiphytes

It's a lot easier to define the word epiphyte than it is to provide examples. The reason is that epiphyte is less a type of plant than it is a lifestyle, and with lifestyles, one can dabble, or one can commit. The line between regular plants and epiphytes, therefore, is kind of fuzzy.

But first things second. What epiphytes actually are, are plants that grow on other plants, generally trees. (Epi - on or above; phyte - plant) They're not parasites: they don't steal nutrients or directly harm the plant they grow on. They may get large enough to break branches off, but that's an accident, and doesn't serve the epiphyte's needs any more than it serves the host. There are a few sinister epiphytes that begin development growing on branches or trunks but eventually outgrow, overwhelm, and kill their host, notably the "strangler figs" like Ficus aurea.

A lot of the aroid epiphytes (Anthurium, Monstera, Philodendron) can either begin life on a tree branch and eventually drop roots down to the ground (primary epiphytes) or begin life on the ground and crawl until they find a tree to climb (secondary epiphytes). Either type of plant is sometimes called a hemiepiphyte. (hemi - half, partial) Some other plants can grow either terrestrially (in the ground) or as epiphytes, depending on where they find themselves, but any individual plant picks one or the other spot and sticks with it. On the other hand, some epiphytes are unable to live terrestrially, and either find themselves a branch as a seedling or they die.

Epiphytes are over-represented in the houseplant world. I suspect the main explanation for this is that epiphytes are naturally adapted to shade, so they adjust better to the lower light levels found in the home. The most common groups of epiphytic houseplants are found in the aroid, bromeliad, cactus, and orchid families.

The list that follows is far from exhaustive; I was kind of in a hurry. (This post is partly so I can be eligible for an epiphyte-centric plant giveaway Steve Asbell is doing; details on how to enter are at his post here.) I'll certainly add other plants if anybody wants to suggest some.

Aechmea fasciata.

Anthurium x 'Marie.'

Dischidia ruscifolia.

Guzmania NOID.

Hylocereus sp.

Oncidium Tsiku Marguerite 'NN #1.'

Platycerium sp.

Schlumbergera NOID.

Selenicereus chrysocardium.

Tillandsia xerographica.

I haven't grown some of the plants in this list (Anthurium, Tillandsia), and one I haven't had for very long (Oncidium), so I'm not sure the recommendations and anti-recommendations are going to be all that useful, but we'll try.

I'm a big fan of Schlumbergeras. They have slightly quirky needs, but they're less complicated than I'd been led to believe, the flowers are really pretty, and the plants can last forever.

Dischidia ruscifolia doesn't do a whole lot, but as far as I can tell, they're easy to keep happy.

Aechmea fasciata should be available a lot more often than it is, because it's a very nice plant, even when it's not flowering. I find them very easy to care for, too, which helps.

(I also suspect that I would probably like Tillandsia xerographica if I got to know it, but they're rarely available here, and when they are available, they're really expensive. So I don't have one yet.)

For the anti-recommend, I'd have to go with Anthurium x 'Marie,' even though I haven't actually grown it, because I've grown a couple other foliage Anthuriums and it hasn't worked out. They're not hard to keep alive, but they need a lot more light than I can provide: without it, the leaves get either enormous and thin (A. "hookeri") or small and twisted (A. podophyllum), and neither one looks particularly good. (I haven't had a good time with my Platycerium either, but I'm not sure which of us is more to blame for that, so they might work out fine for other people and I won't discourage you from trying one.)

All epiphytic plants have certain expectations for what kind of material they're going to find around their roots, and sometimes if you have trouble with an epiphyte, the soil is the problem, not you or the plant. I've recently started adding coarse, unchopped sphagnum moss to the potting mix I usually use, in about a 1:1 ratio, for my Anthurium andraeanums and bromeliads, and it seems to have made a world of difference there. (This may be why the Platycerium hasn't worked out: for it, I used the straight potting mix, with no modification, which is possibly too heavy.) Orchids are typically grown in mixed chunky pieces of bark but are sometimes also grown in 100% coarse sphagnum. For a lot of the epiphytic cacti, my regular potting mix seems to be okay with no modification most of the time.

Not pictured:

Most other Aechmea spp. (epiphytic or terrestrial)
some Aeschynanthus spp. (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Anthurium andraeanum (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Anthurium crystallinum (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Anthurium podophyllum (epiphytic or terrestrial)
some Begonia spp.
most Billbergia spp.
Cattleya and Cattleya alliance orchids like Potinara, Brassolaeliocattleya, Sophrolaeliocattleya, etc.
some (?) Cryptanthus cvv. (?) (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Cymbidium spp.
most (?) Dendrobium spp.
Dischidia spp. including D. nummularia 'Pebble Beach'
Epiphyllum spp.
Ficus benjamina (not a lot of information about it being a strangler fig out there, but it comes up often enough that I think it must be occasionally)
Hatiora salicornioides and other Hatiora spp.
a few Hippeastrum spp.
some Hoya spp., including H. carnosa (?) (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Lepismium spp.
Monstera deliciosa (hemiepiphyte)
Myrmecophilia spp.
Nepenthes spp.
some Neoregelia spp. (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Oncidium and Oncidium alliance orchids like Miltoniopsis, Beallara, Odontoglossum, Vuylstekeara, Wilsonara, etc.
some Paphiopedilum spp.
Phalaenopsis spp.
Philodendron bipennifolium (hemiepiphyte)
Philodendron bipinnatifidum (hemiepiphyte)
Philodendron hastatum (hemiepiphyte)
Philodendron hederaceum (hemiepiphyte)
Philodendron martianum (epiphytic or terrestrial)
Philodendron mexicanum (hemiepiphyte)
Pseudorhipsalis ramulosa
most (all?) Rhipsalis spp.
Schomburgkia spp.
Syngonium podophyllum (hemiepiphyte)
Many but not all Tillandsia spp. ("air plants")
Vanilla spp. (hemiepiphyte)
Vireya spp.
some Vriesea spp., including V. splendens
Worsleya rayneri

Memorial Day: Late Entries

Just a few late additions to the dead-plant pile. These first two failed to get their registrations in on time, presumably because they were busy being dead. There might eventually be even more additions: some of the Saintpaulias are looking a little peaked, and have since before the move. Because I should not try to grow Saintpaulias.

Asparagus plumosus (or A. setaceus, if you'd rather). August 2008 to July 2009. Cause of death unknown, confusing.

Guzmania cv. Also August 2008 to July 2009. Cause of death: natural senescence of a post-flowering bromeliad, plus drought, plus I think it just never liked me in the first place. I know it doesn't look all the way dead in the picture, but trust me: it's dead. Some of the leaves haven't been told yet, is all.


Though it's not technically dead, I've also given up on the above Ferocactus (which sucks, 'cause it was a gift from Aiyana at Water When Dry, and I feel guilty¹) because it somehow got mealybugs. A handful of other things also got mealybugs (Crassula ovata x 2, Astrophytum myriostigma), but they appear to have stayed mealybug-free after being rubbed down with alcohol and (in the case of the Crassulas) being cut back: not only did the mealybugs return to the Ferocactus, they came back more numerous than they had been to start with. I don't have it in me right now to fight mealybugs for a year and a half, not again, so I'm trying to cut my losses.

The scary part is that I don't know where they came from, or whether I still have some around elsewhere else. I mean, I must have them on something else, because the afflicted plants were all plants I've had for over a year, and I hadn't seen mealybugs on anything else in several months. So it's got to be a newish arrival, right? But which one? WHICH ONE?

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¹ Aiyana, if it helps: the Aloe variegata offsets are doing really well, and the Euphorbia anoplia . . . er, got a bit etiolated, which I really couldn't help. But it's alive, and otherwise healthy. The Ferocactus had been alive for quite a while, too.

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

Unlike most of the transmitted light posts recently, this one isn't because I ran out of time to write anything else and had to use one of the transmitted light stockpile. Having pre-loaded photos was still a factor, though, since I have to spend a lot of the next couple weeks packing, watering, working, and relocating, and so I'm trying to pre-write the blog, which means that even though I haven't actually run out of time and had to scramble for something to post, it still feels like I have.

On the plus side, this batch contains what is possibly my all-time favorite transmitted light photo to date. It's at least in the top ten.

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

Brassolaeliocattleya 'Helene Brown.' Sort of a cat's-eye effect, almost.

Guzmania lingulata NOID. Boring, but at least it's in focus.

Variegated Tradescantia pallida. This one didn't really work any better than the nonvariegated Tradescantia pallida photo, but it's a little more interesting to look at.

Philodendron hastatum. Much more impressive in person; I'm not sure if this is just a bad picture or if no pictures of P. hastatum by transmitted light turn out well. It seemed like a better picture when I took it originally. Maybe I screwed it up in the cropping somehow.

Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana.' More or less what you'd expect it to look like, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis NOID. Who knew?

Gynura aurantiaca. Better if opened in a separate window: the hairs show up well enough that you can tell which direction they're pointing.

Plumeria NOID. Nicely dramatic. This is another one that's better in a separate window.

Acer platanoides 'Crimson Sentry.' An actual tree for once. Not a particularly interesting leaf, but the color is pleasant.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Tilt a Whirl.' Very likely my favorite transmitted light picture to date. I had plans at one point to do an all-Solenostemon transmitted light post, but after spending hours rearranging all the pictures, I realized that if I took out all the Solenostemons and gave them their own separate post, then I wound up with one kick-ass, super-spectacular post and seven or eight really dull ones. So I won't be doing that, but instead you'll be seeing Solenostemon pictures scattered over the next seven or eight transmitted light posts. Though this has got to be the best, or maybe second-best (the 'Gays Delight' picture rocks pretty hard), of all of them.