Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 2.13-2.16

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.

The results for matches 1.61 to 1.64 were posted in this morning's post, if you haven't already seen that.

Today's matches:

Match 2.13
Platycerium spp. (staghorn fern) vs. Gynura aurantiaca (purple passion plant)

(Unidentified Platycerium spp.)

(All Gynura aurantiaca.)





Match 2.14
Aloe vera (medicinal aloe, burn plant) vs. Schlumbergera cvv. (holiday/Thanksgiving/Christmas cactus)

(Top: young Aloe vera. Bottom: mature A. vera.)

Center and top left: Schlumbergera 'Caribbean Dancer;' others are NOID.





Match 2.15
Pachira aquatica (money tree) vs. Cordyline fruticosa cvv. (ti plant)

(Pachira aquatica.)

Clockwise from top left: Cordyline fruticosa 'Florica,' species, NOID, NOID which might be 'Chocolate Queen,' 'Kiwi.'





Match 2.16
Mimosa pudica (sensitive plant) vs. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (tropical hibiscus)

Both Mimosa pudica. Left photo belongs to, and is used with permission from, Liza Wheeler at Good to Grow.

All unidentified cvv. except left center ('Mrs. Jimmy Spangler') and bottom right ('Sunny Wind').





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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?

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 1.29-1.32

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 1.13 to 1.16

The bracket selection was more or less random,² so very similar plants occasionally wound up in competition with one another during the first round. Two such pairings happened in this batch, but y'all appear to have had no difficulty choosing one over the other. Interestingly, the vote proportions wound up being eerily similar for each of the four contests in this set, with the winner getting about 67% of the vote in each case.

Match 1.13 saw Ficus maclellandii beating Schefflera elegantissima easily, 71 to 34, despite both plants having a narrow/pointy/treelike thing going on. I guess this means that some of you have tried to grow S. elegantissima.
In match 1.14, the votes were similar, in favor of Strelitzia nicolai and S. reginae over Guzmania cvv., 69 to 37.

Ficus maclellandii and Strelitzia nicolai/reginae both advance to match 2.7, where they will face off against one another. That won't be posted until October 8, which hopefully will be enough time for me to decide which one to vote for.

Match 1.15 was the other one where I thought maybe the combatants were maybe too similar, both being pretty common vining plants, but you guys chose Philodendron hederaceum cvv. over Syngonium podophyllum cvv. by, again, about a two to one margin (68 to 37).
And finally, in match 1.16, Dracaena fragrans cvv. handily defeated Saxifraga stolonifera, 71 to 36. Except not handily, because they don't have hands. Rootily. Leafily. Something like that.

Philodendron hederaceum cvv. will face Dracaena fragrans cvv. on October 8, in match 2.8, which will also be a difficult one for me to vote on. Maybe I should just not vote that day.

But there are votes to be cast today, so have at 'em:

Match 1.29
Pachira aquatica (money tree) vs. Pilosocereus pachycladus

(Pachira aquatica.)

(Pilosocereus pachycladus.)





Match 1.30
Cordyline fruticosa cvv. (ti plant) vs. Euphorbia lactea cvv.

Clockwise from top left: Cordyline fruticosa 'Florica,' species, NOID, NOID which might be 'Chocolate Queen,' 'Kiwi.'

Clockwise from left: Euphorbia lactea, Euphorbia lactea crest grafted onto a E. drupifera base, crested E. lactea.





Match 1.31
Ravenea rivularis (majesty palm) vs. Mimosa pudica (sensitive plant)

(Both Ravenea rivularis.)

Both Mimosa pudica. Left photo belongs to, and is used with permission from, Liza Wheeler at Good to Grow.





Match 1.32
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (tropical hibiscus) vs. Dracaena sanderiana (lucky bamboo, ribbon plant)

All unidentified cvv. except left center ('Mrs. Jimmy Spangler') and bottom right ('Sunny Wind').

(Dracaena sanderiana, variegated cv.)





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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 (I had a list of plants in Excel, created a column of random numbers next to it, then sorted according to the random numbers. I swapped a few plants around after that, if it looked like two plants that would be very popular were facing off against one another in the first round, so the end result is not strictly random, but it's pretty close.)

Random plant event: Mimosa pudica flower

I'm not a fan of sensitive plants. I know, I know, I'm a grumpy old man with a shriveled black heart who will never know the true meaning of Christmas. But it's just -- they always look kind of scruffy and weedy and miserable. (They actually are weeds in warmer climates than Iowa's.) And then if you touch one, it'll wilt and then look even more miserable. As novelty plants go, it's kind of a dumb trick, though I concede that even a dumb trick is better than no trick, like most plants.

Anyway. So this isn't one of my personal plants: I took the pictures at Pierson's, in Cedar Rapids, in October.


That said, the flowers would be sort of pretty, if there were more of them and/or they were larger. And even as the solitary small things they are, the flowers are interesting, I suppose. Different from the usual flower.


I dunno. I was basically neutral about Mimosa pudica until I worked with them at the garden center. So much time spent trying to separate plants that had grown into one another and tangled; so much angst about germination until we found the secret (hot water + overnight soak + bottom heat). I never hated them the way I hated some plants, but I can't imagine ever wanting to own one, either.

'Course, there are other schools of thought.