Unfinished business: NOID ferns

The original plant was a hitchhiker in the pot of a now-gone Rhipsalis NOID, which I carefully plucked out and potted up on its own, and it went from this

to this

in a year and a half. (And just so we're clear about how much growth that was, the pot in those pictures went from 4" / 10 cm to 8" / 20 cm.)

Not quite a year after that, I saw a couple scale insects on it, so I cut all the foliage off and sprayed some rubbing alcohol around or something. Two or three weeks later:

18 March 2014.
And a mere two months after getting cut back:

26 April 2014.
Just monstrous. I've recently learned that there's one exception to the remarkable speed, though.

I'm not sure when it started producing spores; my guess is the summer of 2013. I didn't necessarily want more of these plants (where would I even put another one of these plants, after all?), but you know me: I can't help myself. So I sprinkled some spores around in one of the Anthurium germination containers, and also in a separate sealed plastic container containing some potting soil, as an experiment. I think this was in September 2013.

And nothing happened. I'd done the same thing with Cyrtomium falcatum, earlier, and nothing happened then either, so I concluded that I was destined for greater things than propagating ferns, and forgot about it all.

So when something started coming up in the germination containers with the Anthurium seeds, it took me a little while to figure out. They didn't look much like the fern I'd started with: the fronds were so thin they were practically transparent, and the wrong color besides -- sort of a pale apple-green instead of the blue-green of the fully-grown plant. Wasn't 100 percent sure what I had, but when in doubt, pot it up and see what happens.¹ So I potted up a banker's dozen² in individual three-inch pots on 20 September 2015. I don't have any photos of them until 24 November; I'm guessing I didn't want to put the time into taking pictures if I didn't know for sure what they were or whether they were going to live. By November, though, it was clear they were ferns:

24 November 2015.
And it quickly became clear that these were the quick-growing monster-type ferns. Ten weeks later:

3 February 2016.
And by now, late April, they've grown so much that it's hard to get a picture of them all at once:

25 April 2016.
They've grown so much that they're already bending their pots out of shape

and their rhizomes are jumping over the pots' sides.

So I should maybe be thinking about moving them up to 4-inch pots already.

You may have noticed that I've avoided saying what they are. I've had some trouble settling on an ID. Obviously the original plant, as a hitchhiker, didn't have an ID on it. I thought for a while maybe it was Phlebodium aureum,
though I wasn't sure, because the only P. aureum I had to compare it to was my (since-deceased) P. aureum 'Mandianum,' which has a similar color but much rufflier fronds. There were other reasons to doubt the ID too; I no longer remember what they were, though.

And then I had an anonymous commenter do a drive-by to tell me that it was obviously a Laua'e fern (Hawaiian Wart fern), Phymatosorus grossus. Image searches seemed to argue against Phymatosorus, which has glossier, greener fronds, and also Phymatosorus is supposed to have a pleasant scent, which my plants do not. The arrangement of the sporangia seems subtly different, too, though it's harder to say exactly what's different about them.

In any case. After comparing pictures of the venation on Phlebodium aureum 'Blue Hare' (here) with the venation on my fern, I'm about 75% confident that I have P. aureum. If any fern experts are reading this and feel like weighing in, feel free. I'd look into it harder myself, but I'm kind of busy trying to figure out what to do with all these.³

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¹ The ones in the separate sealed plastic container with soil also started coming up at about the same time, which either means that they just take two years to develop from spores, or some freaky coincidence was happening. 'Cause they weren't in very similar conditions, aside from the high humidity: different temperatures, different light sources, different light durations.
² (Most internet sources will tell you a banker's dozen is eleven, but in this case I mean ten. The joke works for any number under twelve.)
³ (I don't even know what to call them. I mean, they're not seedlings if there were no seeds, right? As far as I could find from, admittedly, a kind of half-assed search, there's no botanical, technical, or horticultural word for ferns analogous to "seedling." Any fern experts in the audience are invited to answer that question too; in the meantime I guess I'm going with "sporeling.")

Random plant event: NOID NOID

The scale infestation continues. It is in fact looking like what people say is true: once you have scale, you always have scale. It's never very many insects, they're never on very many plants, I can occasionally even remove an infestation from an area entirely by repeated spraying with rubbing alcohol.¹ But it always seems to move somewhere else, and always seems to return to the plants I removed it from. Between the scale and the sunburn and rot caused by putting plants outside before they were ready, I'm on the verge of throwing out all my Agaves, Furcraeas, Manfredas, and Mangaves and being rid of those genera forever, the same way I abandoned Hedera and Codiaeum to the spider mites years ago. I mean, look what happened to my Agave lophantha 'Quadricolor' after two days outside:

September 2013:

April 2014:

I did salvage an unrotted offset from it, and I had a previous offset (taken over a year ago, when I'd thought the scale might lead me to throw the plant out), but that's small consolation for losing a specimen as large and pretty as it was. Especially since the offsets will likely die or get thrown out before reaching that size themselves.

But we're not here to mourn the Agave; we're here to marvel at the recuperative powers of my NOID fern.²

I discovered scale on several of the fronds around the beginning of March, maybe the end of February. I started cutting off any fronds that had obvious scale, and any fronds that were close enough to have had honeydew dripped on them. As I progressed, I realized that 1) this would result in me cutting off most of the fronds, and 2) any fronds that I left would probably have enough undetectable scale on them to launch a new round of infestation, so I'd have hacked my fern to bits but accomplished nothing. So, I cut all the fronds off down to the rhizomes. Maybe the plant would come back, maybe it wouldn't, but at least the scale would be gone.³

I'm not certain about the date, but my best guess is that I cut the fronds off on 28 February. By 18 March, new ones were coming up all over:

And by yesterday morning (26 April), it was back to what it had looked like before, pretty much:

That's an incredibly fast comeback.

I don't know yet whether this had the intended effect of getting rid of all the scale. I haven't seen any yet, but then I've also been too busy and too scared to look for it. I'm impressed with the plant's recovery either way, though.

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¹ If you want to recommend that I try pesticides, especially imidacloprid: been there. Done that. More than once. It costs too much for something that works as slowly and incompletely as it does.
² It was a hitch-hiker in a Rhipsalis I bought years ago. Took it out, nursed it along, and it is now much, much larger than the Rhipsalis ever dreamed of getting. Because the fern wasn't supposed to be in the pot, though, there was no ID for it. My best guess is that it's a Phlebodium of some kind, possibly P. aureum. When I expressed this opinion in a previous post, someone popped up to tell me that it was cleeeeearly a Hawaiian wart fern (Microsorum scolopendria or Phymatosorus grossus) and not a Phlebodium at all. Based on the lack of scent (M. scolopendria fronds are supposed to smell like vanilla.) and the less-orderly arrangement of its spores, I'm pretty certain it's not that particular Microsorum (or Phymatosorus). Though I don't rule out that it could be a Microsorum (or Phymatosorus).
³ In theory. I was assuming that the scale wouldn't be able to survive on the hairy rhizomes long enough for the plant to grow new fronds. This may or may not be a good assumption.

They Grow Up So Fast, Part 5

Another one of these, motivated mostly by the fact that I just took a round of new pictures a week and a half ago and clearly had to do something with them.

Unidentified fern
This was a "bonus plant." It came along with the Rhipsalis NOID, way back in March 2011. I didn't expect it to survive, but I was curious about what it was, and I figured it was worth a shot, so I removed it as carefully as I could from the pot and put it in its own 4-inch (10 cm) pot, with a clear plastic drinking glass over it to keep the humidity high while it recovered. For a while at the beginning, I thought it might be a Microsorum diversifolium, but I'm thinking now it's probably a Phlebodium aureum, or something very similar. Which is kind of nice for me, since the big huge Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum' got thrown out in the scalepocalypse and I didn't have a back-up.

August 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
October 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
September 2012. Pot: 6 inches (15 cm).
March 2013. Pot: 8 inches (20 cm).

Agave desmettiana?
Another one that's changed size pretty dramatically, though in this case it took quite a bit longer. It would probably have gone a lot faster if I'd been letting it spend every summer outside, instead of just 2012.

I can't say enough nice things about Agave as a genus. They're among the least fussy plants I've grown, they get gratifyingly big, they're easy to propagate (once they decide to start offsetting), and they're neat-looking. I mean, sure, you do have to be willing to get stabbed in the face from time to time. But everything else about them is awesome.

January 2008. Pot: 3 inches (8 cm) along the diagonal.

November 2009. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm)?

August 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm)?

July 2011. Pot: 6 inches (15 cm)?
March 2013. Pot: 8 or 9 inches (20-23 cm).


Epipremnum aureum 'Neon'
I'd had bad experiences with 'Neon' in the past; one 4-inch (10 cm) plant did okay for me until I tried to move it up to a 6-inch (15 cm) pot, and then it suddenly rotted and died. I couldn't even salvage any cuttings: they were somehow already rotten by the time I took them, even though they looked perfectly healthy.

However, I couldn't resist trying again last summer. It turns out that it's a much more forgiving plant if you give it things like light and fertilizer;¹ there's only nine months' difference between the two pictures below.

June 2012. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
March 2013. Pot: 6 inches (15 cm).

Anthurium schlechtendahlii
I've covered Anthurium schhlechtendahlii previously, but thought it was worth showing you again, considering how much it's grown in the last year and a half.

I'd been worried that this was going to be another situation like Anthurium "hookeri,"² where I wouldn't be able to provide it with enough light, so it'd get huge, weird leaves and never look quite right. But so far, it's been pretty happy with artificial light and regular room conditions. The husband's office tends to run colder than the rest of the house,³ even, but that hasn't seemed to be a problem. It's getting close to outgrowing its spot, and I'm not sure I have anywhere to move it when it does, but it surely has to count as a success to have gone from seedlings to monster in just under three years.


August 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).

February 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).

July 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
March 2013. Pot: 8 inches (20 cm).

Unidentified Ficus benjamina cv.
This one started out as perlite-rooted cuttings from the ex-job, and I didn't give it decent light until very recently, because there's only so much light to go around and it didn't seem to urgently need a lot. But once I gave it one of the highly-coveted south window spots, it's filled out like crazy, much better than some of the other Ficuses I've started from cuttings. (How many times do I need to learn that even plants which tolerate lower levels of light might still prefer more light? I don't know. At least twice, apparently.)

Ficus benjamina is another one that I'm appreciating a lot more in the last year or so than I did before that. Sometimes the boring plants you see everywhere are everywhere for good reasons.


January 2008. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).

October 2011. Pot: 6 inches (15 cm).
March 2013. Pot: 8 inches (20 cm).
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¹ (who knew?)
² (Sold to me as A. hookeri, but I understand it's pretty unlikely to be A. hookeri, hence the quote marks.)
³ We chose wrong when we were picking out rooms for ourselves. I'm always too hot, but I picked the hottest room; he's always too cold, and picked the coldest. In our defense, we didn't know any of this at the time we were doing the picking. We've both made enough changes to the rooms that it would be difficult to switch back.

Walkaways Part 17

A few interesting plants from the ex-job:

Calliandra emarginata.
They were selling Calliandra emarginata as a bonsai (or at least a bonsish; I don't think they've ever had actual bonsai bonsai), which guarantees that I will never buy it, but it's an interesting plant. No clue what they're like to grow indoors; I don't even have any idea what they're like to grow outdoors.

Kalanchoe 'Fantastic.'
I've had mostly-bad experiences with the Kalanchoe genus in general, and consistently bad experiences with Kalanchoe luciae specifically, in the past, so this wasn't particularly tempting, but it was new (to me), and I can't argue that it's not a cool-looking plant.


I don't know whether this is K. luciae or K. thyrsiflora, and it appears no one else does either: Google results are split about 50/50. The tag, for the record, said K. thyrsiflora, not that that means much.

Loropetalum chinensis.
Loropetalum chinensis is another bons-ish; I include it here mostly because I'd never heard of it before and it's kind of pretty.

Polypodium formosanum var. cristatum.
I intend to try this plant someday. I've had some ups and downs lately with footed ferns (two of my three Davallias have taken a recent hard turn for the worse, over nothing in particular that I can see; one has died as a result), but Phlebodium aureum is one of my favorite plants, and Polypodium grandiceps seems to be working for me so far, so P. formosanum seems worth a try even so.

It's possible that the correct name is Phlebodium formosanum, not Polypodium formosanum; Glasshouse Works gives both names but appears to favor Phlebodium. If that's the case, then I'm even more interested.

Philodendron 'Pink Princess.'
Finally, Philodendron 'Pink Princess.' For most of the last few years, I haven't seen it for sale anywhere around here (I think I saw them at Wallace's once), and now all of a sudden the ex-job has gotten them on two separate shipments, as 6" (shown) and also as 4". It's an interesting-looking plant, but I'm not terribly interested in 'Pink Princess' because it's super expensive, and everything I've heard about it suggests that it's really slow-growing. The two things are probably related.

I don't remember what the ex-job wanted for the 4-inch plants, but it was definitely over $10, maybe something like $15. They paid a lot to get them in, I understand (don't know how much, but I know how they calculate these things, and the retail prices reflect wholesale), but $10 for a 4-inch tropical plant is never going to seem acceptable to me.

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 1.53-1.56

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.

And now, the results from matches 1.37 to 1.40:

Even with the obvious handicap of having glued-on flowers, Cereus tetragonus² came very close to winning match 1.37. It didn't, losing to Pilea involucrata 'Norfolk' by a handful of votes (55 to 48), but it came really close.
Chlorophytum comosum, despite some protests, pretty easily beat Echinocactus grusonii in match 1.38, 64 to 40.

Pilea involucrata 'Norfolk' faces Chlorophytum comosum in match 2.19, which will begin October 11.

Match 1.39 was pretty close, but Kalanchoe luciae & thyrsiflora managed a win over Peperomia clusiifolia, 56 to 42.
Finally, match 1.40 was very one-sided: Echeveria cvv. stomped Nephrolepis exaltata by 87 to 20.

Kalanchoe luciae/thyrsiflora goes up against Echeveria cvv. on October 11, in match 2.20.

And now, today's new polls:

Match 1.53
Cycas revoluta (sago palm) vs. Espostoa lanata, Oreocereus trollii, & Cephalocereus senilis (old man cactus)

(Top: older Cycas revoluta. Bottom: young C. revoluta.)

(Espostoa lanata CORRECTION 1/13/14: this is actually Oreocereus trollii)





Match 1.54
Tradescantia zebrina (wandering jew) vs. Portulacaria afra (elephant bush)

(All are unidentified cvv. of Tradescantia zebrina.)

Left and center: Portulacaria afra. Right: variegated cv.





Match 1.55
Tillandsia cyanea (pink quill) vs. Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (flaming katy, kalanchoe)

(Tillandsia cyanea.)

(All are NOID Kalanchoe blossfeldiana cvv.)





Match 1.56
Self-heading Philodendrons ('Autumn,' 'Prince of Orange,' 'Moonlight') vs. Davallia and other furry-rhizomed ferns like Polypodium/Phlebodium (rabbit's-foot fern, hare's-foot fern, bear's-paw fern, kangaroo fern)

Clockwise from top left: Philodendron 'Prince of Orange,' 'Moonlight,' 'Autumn,' 'Prince of Orange,' 'Moonlight.'

Clockwise from left: Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum,' close-up of Davallia rhizomes, Davallia fejeensis 'Major.'





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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 (Or whatever it is: it's identified as at least three different species and I'm not enough of a cactus expert to make a judgment. Calling it C. tetragonus follows the usage of CactiGuide.com.)

Errata, Taxonomy

I know the Errata posts are not the most fascinating, but I feel sort of obliged -- if I'm going to be responsible for spreading bad information, the least I can do is post the good information when I find what it is. Also I figure some of y'all are nerdy enough to care about these things for their own sakes.

So. In the most recent round of name changes, we have:

Maranta leuconeura kerchoviana.
Maranta leuconeura kerchovEana --> M. l. kerchovIana. It's probably a bad assumption, but I've been assuming that the "correct" version of names is probably the one that shows up most often in Google searches, at least when we're talking about spelling variants. "Kerchoveana" is also pretty widespread, and I'm not positive it's wrong, but it seemed worth changing anyway, since I was already there to update all the posts to link M. l. kerchoviana to the M. l. erythroneura profile, having realized that the odds are very, very slim that I'll ever write a separate profile for M. l. kerchoviana.

Bryophyllum tubiflorum.
Kalanchoe tubiflora has become Bryophyllum tubiflorum.

Aloe 'Doran Black.'
The eternal alternation between Aloe 'Doran Black' and Aloe 'DorIan Black' is once again in a 'Doran' phase, and this had better be the last time I have to change this, goddamn it.

Anthurium crystallinum 'Mehani.'
I've decided I'm pretty sure that Anthurium 'Mehani' is actually A. crystallinum 'Mehani,' as certain other websites claim.

Plectranthus verticillatus.
Plectranthus nummularius got switched to P. verticillatus. I've been calling it nummularius for so long that I don't expect I'll be able to remember this, but we'll see. I pretty much never shut up about this plant, so if nothing else I got a lot of practice typing "verticillatus:" who knows, maybe it'll help me remember.

Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum.'
Polypodium aureum 'Mandianum' and 'Blue Hare' have been changed to Phlebodium aureum 'Mandianum' / 'Blue Hare.' This is also going to be a tough one for me to remember.

Albuca bracteata.
Ornithogalum bracteatum and O. longibracteatum are now obsolete names for Albuca bracteata. This is also going to be impossible for me to remember, as Ornithogalum has been the name for as long as I've been reading plant books, and has a bit better memory hook ("ornitho" means "bird;" I don't know what the "-galum" part means) than Albuca (no clue, on the meaning of "albuca"). But I will do my best.

Vriesea imperialis.
Alcantarea imperialis becomes Vriesea imperialis, which was long overdue; most people were well ahead of me on that one already.

Justicia scheidweileri.
I'd mentally switched names already, and was using the correct name in the new posts, but I finally went back and changed Porphyrocoma pohliana to Justicia scheidweileri in the old posts.

Astrophytum ornatum.
Finally, in one spot I referred to Astrophytum ornatUM as A. ornatA: ornatum is correct, and this has been changed.

I'm aware of certain other incorrect plant names being used here at PATSP, but I can only stand to change names for just so long before it becomes unbearably tedious. Also: I just don't think some of the changes can be correct (Dracaena marginata --> D. reflexa); in other cases it would be incredibly difficult to go back and make the changes to every post in which the plant appears (Dracaena deremensis --> D. fragrans); and sometimes I just find the new name aesthetically displeasing and am hoping that they'll change it back even though I don't think they will (Synadenium grantii --> Euphorbia umbellata).

Now go and get on with your Saturday.