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

I'm going to be working on Berry Go Round #41 this week (hoping to have it up on Wednesday, but no promises), so it's transmitted-light time again.

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

Hosta NOID.

Tradescantia pallida.

Cissus rhombifolia. Something about the slight variations in color here makes me really happy. The plant itself mostly makes me angry, unfortunately -- I had one a few years ago that did reasonably well for a year or two, but then it slowly dwindled to nothing for no discernable reason. I've bought replacements for it, but they tend to begin dwindling immediately. Sometimes I also had mildew problems. Yes, I have fairly good humidity here in the house, but it's not so good that I should be seeing mildew. So Cissus rhombifolia is on the Never Again list.

Episcia NOID. Episcias don't tend to give particularly good transmitted light photos, despite the often-colorful leaves. Gesneriads in general tend not to turn out well, actually. I think the leaves are too thick for it to work properly.

Acer sp., autumn.

Aglaonema 'Jubilee.' Especially perceptive readers might notice that this is the same image as the one I'm using for the header for the next several weeks; that was accidental, and if I'd noticed it was part of the next set of transmitted light pictures, I would have picked something else. Oh well.

Prunus sp., autumn.

Asplundia 'Jungle Drum.'

Euonymous alatus, autumn. This is probably my favorite from this set, though I'm a little hazy as to why. Makes me think of lightning, a little.

Ipomoea NOID, petals. It's hard to find opportunities for blue transmitted light pictures. I think this one turned out nicely.

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

Okay. Well. The "good" stress is over now, I think/hope, so now we're just waiting to see what's going to happen from it. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get some plants watered and some blog posts written, so I can make the time to have a small nervous breakdown later. (It's possible that I've had a nervous breakdown already, on Friday and Saturday, but you can never have too many, right?)

Meanwhile, Transmitted Light Week rumbles along with another batch of ten pictures.

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

Lycoris squamigera ("naked ladies"). Plain though the picture is, I kind of like this one. I like the plant, too, though the flowers I saw around town this year didn't look very good, compared to my memory of 2009. Perhaps they don't do as well in wet years?

Juglans sp.? I'm not sure on this one, because there are several trees around here with odd-pinnate leaves, and although I can tell that they aren't all the same, I've never been able to figure out how many there are or how to tell them apart. This was growing in someone's yard, so a walnut tree seems like a reasonable guess, and it's a very new leaf, so there isn't much to go on for an ID anyway. And it's not like it was that great of a photo to begin with, so why are we even talking about this?

Salvia elegans. Now that we've had a hard freeze, all the plants I stuck in the back yard have died, so I'm hoping that I can get a post together about the progression of the blooming. Some of this is just for my own curiosity about when it was actually at its peak, and some of it is that I took pictures every two or three days for weeks and I'll be damned if I'm not going to get something for all that effort.

Plectranthus amboinicus. If you tilt your head to the right, there's a Christmas tree in this picture. Or at least I see one.

Hosta NOID. In case you didn't believe me about these pictures being from the spring, I think this photos should convince you. When's the last time you saw a Hosta leaf that wasn't all ragged from wind and holey from slugs? Was it spring?

Syringa vulgaris. Probably my second-favorite photo from this batch. Also further evidence of spring photo-taking.

Nematanthus cv. These always look like they'd be perfect for transmitted light photos when the sun hits them right, but the leaves are so small that I can never get very good pictures out of them.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Henna.' Not a variety I'm terribly familiar with; we didn't carry it when I was working in the garden center. The photo doesn't do much for me.

Colocasia 'Coffee Cups.' This was an unusually difficult picture to get; the camera wouldn't focus on it properly. I like the color I wound up with, but I've seen (and taken) much better photos of Colocasias before.

Calathea makoyana. My favorite from the set, which I suppose is sort of predictable: plants in the maranta family (Marantaceae) are terribly photogenic in general. Less predictably, I've had the plant for six months now, and it's still alive. It's had spider mites once already, and the new leaves aren't very big, but with Calatheas, technically alive is accomplishment enough.

The One About Plant Theft

Sheba and I stopped to admire and photograph this Zantedeschia outside an insurance office in town when the agent inside saw us and came out to say hi. We'd met her before, on a walk, so this was cool. I explained my presence as being because of the Zantedeschia, and she said something to the effect of, yeah, we used to have two pots this size, both with callas in them, but somebody stole one of them so now there's just this one.

The Zantedeschia in question.
Oh. Well it's a very nice wait a minute did you say somebody stole one?

Yup. The theory was that it may have been someone in town for a funeral (there's a funeral home right across the street from the insurance office), because it didn't seem plausible to her that someone who lived in town would do this. I mean, it's a small place: someone would know.

Well, maybe. But it wouldn't surprise me if it were someone in town.

This is not the first such story I've heard from around here. One of the people I worked with at the garden center sold daylilies and hostas (among, possibly, other things) from her home as a side business, and on multiple occasions in 2008, she came home to find plants missing. It was a specific weird number, too, every time, like she came home and found she had 31 fewer plants than before. Presumably whoever was taking them could only fit 31 in their car/pickup/whatever. It was really upsetting her. It kind of upset me to hear about it.

Hemerocallis fulva, I think. Hers were probably much nicer than this.
For readers who are commencing a knee-jerk reaction about how this happened because of whatever your particular theory about What's Wrong With the Kids of Today is (people today don't respect their elders; they think everything's a video game; it's all been downhill since the Supreme Court took prayer out of schools; schools don't teach the subjunctive mood anymore, etc.), catch that knee. This has been going on for generations. People suck now, because people used to suck in the olden days:

A Chicago Daily Tribune article from June 1876 bemoaned a crime wave at a city park: "Rare plants and flowers were ruthlessly dug up from the hot-beds and other places, and the old gardener grew greatly annoyed, and scarcely knew how to catch the thieves," the paper reported. Even after a police stakeout, 10 "splendid geraniums" went missing.

In 1901, Hyde Park was up in arms over bandits who snipped blooms from bushes, and in 1909 six newly planted trees were illegally "wrenched from the soil" near Armour School. "People of the neighborhood are incensed over the latest depredation," the Daily Tribune reported.

(Source: Chicago Tribune)

Sadly, the more serious thefts are apparently usually the work of people who resell them to unscrupulous (I don't want to say "shady") landscapers, or at least that's the explanation I've seen on-line. Which makes sense: I can't imagine any real gardener taking plants from another gardener's yard without permission. And it would really only pay to steal large numbers of plants if you could "launder" them somehow. I mean, if someone plants 500 'Stella D'Oro' daylilies in their yard, three days after all the Stellas within a 30-mile radius disappeared, you know, people would figure it out.

But even if the problem is mostly organized theft for resale, that's not what happened here with the Zantedeschia. I mean, there was a matching plant right there next to it, and they didn't take that one. Sometimes people are just greedy, or lazy, or impulsive.

I suspect this is going to happen more often, as the economy gets more dire. I can't think of any particularly good ways of preventing it, either.

Pilea nummulariifolia. Keep reading to find out why this picture is here.
There's also the issue of sneaky theft: the people who leave the whole plant, in more or less the same condition, but take leaves, seeds, offsets, or whatever without asking anybody first. That's a whole different thing, and if you want to see a bunch of people all get really self-righteous and angry with one another about where to draw those lines, this thread at Garden Web will make your day. Though remember to un-roll your eyes regularly. Whatever side you're on, you're going to want to do some eye-rolling.

Personally? I'm not pure as the driven snow on this one. I do believe it's wrong to take leaves / seeds / offsets without asking, whether it's a big box store, a mom-and-pop nursery, someone's personal garden, whatever. But I've still done it. Possibly this makes me a hypocrite; I prefer to think of it as just error-prone.

I've also realized while writing this that I've conveniently forgotten some instances: when I started, I could only remember the three-inch Pilea nummulariifolia (CLARIFICATION: Normally "three-inch Pilea" would mean a whole plant in a three-inch pot; what I actually took was a single cutting about three inches long. Doesn't make it more moral, but just to clarify your mental image.) I took from a big box store. (Plant is wildly successful; I feel seriously guilty.) Then I remembered the Zamioculcas leaflets from the floor of a mom-and-pop. (Plants are moderately successful; I feel no guilt at all but still should have asked.) Then I remembered the Kalanchoe plantlet from a different mom-and-pop. (Plant was a total failure; I feel moderately guilty.) It's possible there are others.

I would have been mad, if I'd seen someone take these same things from the garden center when I worked there. I wouldn't walk into a bakery and take a bite out of a donut and then walk out without paying; I'm not sure why the situation seems different when it's a plant involved. Some of the people in the Garden Web trainwreck tried to defend it by saying stuff like well, you know, the plant was almost completely dead already, I was just saving some offsets that would have been thrown in the trash. To me, that sounds a lot like "but I took it at 5:30 PM, and the donut was going to be thrown out at 6 PM; therefore it's not stealing because shut up that's why."

So I dunno. I'm not looking for a confessional here, and I'm really not interested in everybody doing a lot of posturing about their personal moral code. We're all good people here (Well, except you there, in the back: you're kind of horrific.); we don't have to prove goodness to one another or convince everybody else that we're the most moralest, bestest person ever.

What interests me is that last question. Why would plants feel like an exception to the general don't-take-it-if-it's-not-yours rule, enough so that people would be at Garden Web defending something that is, at least technically, stealing? (Even, in some cases, arguing that they're practically doing the place a favor by taking stuff -- stuff which clearly has value to someone, because it has value to the person doing the arguing -- without paying for it?) I'm curious. What is it about plants? Or is it specific to plants?

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

In case you hadn't noticed, there's been an enormous jump in the population here at Casa del Subjunctivo (note to self: find a better name for the house) over the last week: I went from 567 on July 19th to 670 on July 27th. A few of these are new purchases, but the majority are divisions and cuttings. There are also some cuttings I'm not confident will work out, so I'm not counting them yet, but if and when they officially take, that might go up over 700. This may help to explain why I'm not doing more long, researchy posts, despite continually promising that I'm going to be. (The other reason is that I have a number of them started at once, some of which are proving to be really difficult.) I'm not lacking at all for subject matter, just for time, which oddly enough was also my excuse three months, one job, and 100 plants ago. I abjectly beg the readers' forgiveness and pledge to do better in the future.

Meanwhile, I will attempt to distract the reader with shiny, brightly-colored things:

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

Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold.' As happens sometimes, the impressive thing here is not the details of the picture itself, but the fact that the picture exists at all: Clivia leaves are remarkably thick and opaque, and in order to get a transmitted light image out of one, you have to more or less set the leaf directly on top of a fluorescent bulb and photograph it that way. Which is what I did.

Variegated Vanilla planifolia. From a plant at the ex-job. I never decided whether I liked the Vanilla plants or not. They were weird, and kinda cool, but also not incredibly exciting. Also expensive.

Hosta cv. 'Summer Breeze.' This reminds me: I have a bunch of Hostas here at the new house that I could be photographing. I don't know cultivar names for them, but that really doesn't matter that much. I should go do that.

Vriesea splendens. Yes, I've done this plant before, but this is a new picture. I don't know what's not working for me, but I think I'm still trying to get a picture of V. splendens I like.

Yucca guatemalensis, variegated variety. (Still often called Y. elephantipes.) I saw a similar gray-variegated Yucca in the Quad Cities a while back that was interesting. The gray and green stripes were more strongly delineated on that one, so there was greater contrast. It wasn't $55 cool, which was the price they had on it, but it was still pretty cool. I'll post a picture sometime.

Zantedeschia NOID. Best picture of the batch, as far as I'm concerned, though there are flashier, more colorful pictures to follow. Come back to this one when you reach the end and tell me it's not the best.

Neoregelia NOID. This is another plant I've had trouble getting a decent transmitted light shot of. The red shading on the left of the picture is real, not an artifact of the photography.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Kingswood Torch.' I was originally very taken with 'Kingswood Torch,' though since the move, I've had trouble finding a bright enough spot for it, so now neither of us are happy. Maybe coleus and I aren't meant for one another after all. Long-time readers will be pleased to learn that the mutant with three-part symmetry is still maintaining the weird growth habit, though its growth also appears to be slow compared to the others.

Caladium NOID. This was some random plant from work that I happened to get a picture of. Turned out reasonably well, I suppose. Probably my second favorite of the batch.

Colocasia 'Black Magic.' One of the more interesting venation patterns I've seen, though I think this plant was sick or light-starved or something: it should be darker than this. The veins show up better on the lighter-colored leaves, though.

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

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

Peperomia clusiifolia cv. There's really no point to trying to do the transmitted light thing with Peperomias. Not that I won't probably try again anyway, but just -- it doesn't work. Leaves are too thick.

Pelargonium x hortorum cv. Sort of a lost-in-translation thing going on here: in person, this was a not-bad picture, but by the time it's cropped and shrunk, it doesn't look like much. Pelargoniums tend to be difficult anyway, because the leaves, annoyingly, try to curl, which makes it hard to get things properly in focus.

Plectranthus ciliatus. Doesn't make a very good houseplant, though it's a vigorous grower in the greenhouse, or outdoors. They get huge.

Hedera canariensis 'Gloire de Marengo.' Excellent focus, and it doesn't even have spider mites visible, so this is, like, the Platonic ideal picture of Hedera canariensis venation.

Lantana camara 'Landmark Yellow.' Good old Lantana.

Hosta cv. 'Orange Marmalade.' Is not even remotely orange, by the way. Not sure what sort of weird Hosta-grower logic was operating when the name was assigned.

Philodendron bipinnatifidum. Sort of mildly surprising: the venation here is very visible, but the plant is so huge that you're not looking for anything on this small of a scale.

Polyscias balfouriana (new leaf). I dislike this picture but can't pin down a reason why. Nothing obviously wrong with it. Maybe the focus could have been better.

Begonia NOID. Not the best of this particular batch, probably, but it's different from anything else I can remember posting before. It's a cane-type Begonia, maybe also an "angel-wing," but I really have a hard time understanding all the fine distinctions in the world of Begonias as far as which are fibrous, tuberous, angel-wing, dragon-wing, non-stop, and so on and so forth. I can more or less tell the rexes apart from everything else, but that's about all. A person could get a Ph.D. in Begonias, it looks like.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Gays Delight.' "Gays" may or may not have an apostrophe in it: the name doesn't really make sense without an apostrophe in there somewhere, but officially, there may not be one.

Pretty picture: Hosta 'Grand Prize'

Perennials week continues with a Hosta picture. This is probably not the most amazing picture or plant, but a lot of the Hosta varieties we've got are not fully up yet, so this was the most striking of what I had to work with when I was taking the picture.

I like Hostas. They look tropical, but they're not. (WCW, who also has a thing for big-leaved tropicals, feels more or less the same way about Hostas.) And they must be fairly easy to grow, because everybody has them everywhere here. I admit to being a little puzzled by the sheer number of varieties: they only seem to be capable of doing just so many colors, variegations, and sizes. You'd think that everything that could be done with Hostas already had been, but I was talking to Perennial Expert the other day and she said that there are new varieties out that, instead of marginal variegation like 'Grand Prize' here, have irregular stripes of a different color in the leaves. (They're called 'Streakers,' and examples can be seen here.) Which I can see how a Hosta connoisseur might get excited about that.

And anyway, I, who have fourteen different but similar Aglaonemas at home, and fifteen varieties of Anthurium which are only distinguishable from one another when they're blooming, really don't have any room to judge Hosta fans for getting excited about subtle differences between varieties. I know what it's like.