Houseplant-Related Beliefs and Traditions

Stealing someone else's potted plant takes a year off your life. (Stealing a plant from someone's garden or landscaping or whatever takes off three.)

Plants in black pots grow better than plants in pots of other colors. Plants also grow better in pots made of pure diamond, though not many people know about that, for obvious reasons.

Pruning a Codiaeum variegatum brings bad luck, usually in the form of spider mites.

If you burn an Ardisia in front of a mirror on your 16th birthday, you may see the face of your future spouse in the flames.

If you're opening a new business and someone gives you a dye-injected plant as a gift, your business will fail within the year.

A dye-injected Phalaenopsis.
Having no houseplants is bad luck.

Having too many (more than about 500) houseplants is also bad luck.

Singing all four verses of The Star-Spangled Banner to any plant in the Rutaceae (Citrus, Murraya, Fortunella, etc.) protects the singer from attack by wild cats (tiger, lion, puma, etc.).

Brown spots on a Dracaena's leaves mean that an enemy is thinking about you.

Some people put rocks or a piece of broken crockery over the drainage hole when repotting houseplants. This is to prevent demons from leaving the root ball through the hole.¹

In their natural habitat, Spathiphyllum spathes are red. They only turn white in the presence of evil people.

Uh-oh.
If a child is afraid of the dark, put a houseplant in their bedroom window for five months, then dispose of it in the trash: the child's fear will be gone once the garbage is collected. If the plant dies before the five months is up, it means that the thing the child is afraid of is real and you should probably move before it does whatever the child fears that it's going to do.

Having potted plants at a funeral guarantees that the deceased will get to go to Heaven, even if they don't deserve it.

Unless one of the funeral plants is a poinsettia.

Growing a Stapelia in the room where you pay bills, balance your checkbook, count your money, etc. means you'll never be poor. (Disclaimer: only works if you've never been poor prior to getting the Stapelia.)

Having blooming aroids (e.g. Anthurium, Spathiphyllum, Zantedeschia, Alocasia, Amorphophallus, Dieffenbachia, etc.) in your home cures erectile dysfunction.

;^) ²
Jumping over a Ficus (except for F. pumila and F. benjamina) at exactly 10:30 PM on New Year's Eve guarantees prosperity for the coming year.

Not pruning a Codiaeum variegatum brings bad luck, usually in the form of spider mites.

People don't bring potted plants to people in the hospital to cheer up patients and make rooms seem more comforting. The real reason is to distract the ghosts of people who died there (hospitals are just crawling with ghosts, for obvious reasons) so they don't bother the patients. This is most effective with plants that have lots of leaves, because the ghosts stop to count all the leaves and then forget to go after the patients.

If you repot a Begonia while you are pregnant, your baby will come out spotted and asymmetrical.

Begonia 'Puffy Clouds.'
If you burn an Ardisia in front of a mirror on your 38th birthday, you may see the angry, shouty face of your current spouse in the flames.³

If you make a wish while removing the dead flowers on an Echeveria, it will come true, unless there's a Gasteria nearby, in which case the wish will never come true.

Owning a Codiaeum variegatum brings bad luck, usually in the form of spider mites.

Dropped buds on a Schlumbergera means something so terrible that I can't even bring myself to write it. Just, you know, pray that it never happens to you, 'cause if it does you're totally hosed.

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¹ No idea why you'd want to keep the demons in the root ball. Maybe they keep the root mealybugs out or something.
² For those keeping track of these things: the inflorescence in the photograph belongs to #223 ("Patty Cake").
³ It also tends not to be great for the mirror.

Six Plants I'm Not Currently Mad At / Poll for the Hive Mind

Oh, Mr. Subjunctive, you silly goose, why do you have to be so negative all the time? Why phrase it as "plants I'm not currently mad at," instead of "plants I love," or "plants that are doing well," or something along those lines?

That's . . . a really good question. I'm pretty sure some of it is just that I'm a relentlessly negative person.¹ And there's also the issue that lots of other blogs use phrasings like "plants I love," and I'm trying to be different.

But there's also the issue of plant betrayal. In the seven or so years I've been doing this, I've been deliriously happy with any number of plants that later turned on me. Euphorbia trigona, once a darling, is now a constant struggle with fungus. Hoyas always seem to succumb to some kind of dramatic and sudden collapse.² Cordyline fruticosa never quite shook the spider mites. I miss one watering and the Episcias all collapse on me, or get devoured by caterpillars, or turn brown and dry out. That sort of thing. And I occasionally wind up looking at one of those older posts, where I'm talking about how delighted I am with a plant, and feel stupid, because I know that a few months or years later, I couldn't stand that plant anymore, or it was dead, or whatever.

Therefore, it needs a qualifier. I'm not mad at them at the moment. Three months from now? Anything could happen. This is a terrible attitude to have, but . . . .

I guess I have no conclusion to that sentence; it's just a terrible attitude. (I never promised to be inspirational.)

These six plants are also the leading candidates for the next plant profile, by the way. I have no strong preference about which I want to write about, so I figured I'd put it up for a vote. So be ready for that, at the end of the post.

Here we go. In no particular order:

1. Breynia disticha 'Roseo-Picta'

Breynia disticha turns out to be a very different plant if you let it spend a summer outside than it is if you make it stay indoors all summer taking violin lessons, or whatever it is you make your Breynias do. It's not that it was growing poorly for me inside, exactly, but it wasn't getting enough light to produce any variegated leaves, the branches were flopping over into all the plants around them,³ and it wasn't branching very much.

Once it went outside for a summer, though, all that changed. Faster growth, all sorts of color, branching -- almost everything turned around. The floppy branches are apparently just Breynia's thing, because that part didn't get any better. But still.

It had been a pretty good plant for me before this, too, as far as that goes. Aside from a brief and easily-won bout with spider mites, there have been no pest problems, and although it wilts dramatically whenever I'm the slightest bit late with the water, it always bounces right back once I give it a good soaking. I've propagated from cuttings a few times (difficult, but doable), humidity seems not to be a big issue, and it's even flowered for me once, not that the flowers are a particularly big deal.


2. Philodendron mexicanum

My original cutting of Philodendron mexicanum got too long to be manageable, so I chopped it up into two-node cuttings and rooted them in water. They all got busy building roots immediately, so now I have a pot with three plants in it, which is the one in the picture.

Like some other vining Philodendrons, P. mexicanum is maybe a little too enthusiastic for its own good (I'm already contemplating chopping up the original cutting again, and it hasn't been that long. A year, maybe?), but the leaves are really lovely (I neglected to choose a photo that shows the red-brown undersides, though if you're interested you can check out this post.), and it's easy to grow, as far as I can tell. Fairly weak artificial light, normal indoor temperatures and humidity, water every two to four weeks.

My only problem to date has been with thrips, of all things. They weren't that hard to get rid of, but they were surprisingly fond of the plant, and apparently used it as a species headquarters, from which they launched expeditions to the neighboring plants.


3. Beaucarnea recurvata

This is probably the most unexpected plant to land on this list. It's not that it was ever doing poorly, exactly; it's more that it's never done much of anything at all. The reason turned out to be pot size and light intensity: after five and a half years of leaving it alone, I repotted it and gave it some direct sun, and bam, new growth. Quite a bit of it, even. (I'm sad to think of how disappointed it will be this winter: I doubt I'll be able to spare a direct-sun spot once all the plants come in from outside.⁴)

Even without new growth, though, it was one of those plants I could depend on not to give me any drama. It was fine with the variable temperature in the plant room, it never got any pests, and if it was unpropagatable, it was at least durable.

The propagation thing is likely to continue to be a problem in the future, but otherwise, I feel like I may finally have figured Beaucarnea recurvata out.


4. Polyscias fruticosa

And then Polyscias fruticosa is probably the most obvious plant to go on the list. I've even been publicly happy with it in the past. I have some pretty serious concerns about it for the future,⁵ but right now, at this particular moment, all is well, and it's been thriving. I'm also pretty pleased with the cultivars I have ('Elegans' and 'Snowflake,' which is just variegated 'Elegans'), and have managed to propagate 'Elegans' a few times, albeit with some difficulty. They're all perfectly happy, and even pest-free (knock wood), so long as I give them some direct sun every day and don't get too unpredictable with the water (both too much and too little leads to defoliation, though too little seems to be worse).

The best part is that as it ages, the plant is developing a sort of Cousin Itt (or possibly Gossamer?) look, which I enjoy.


5. Scindapsus pictus

I have one main problem with Scindapsus pictus, which is that I tend to forget that it exists. Which is to say that whenever I'm listing plants in my mind, in whatever category, I never remember to include it.

It's a perfectly nice plant, as plants go. I treat it horribly: it's on a shelf a couple inches below other plants, which block most of the light. It gets air-conditioning blasted directly at it during the summer. I'm pretty sure the soil hasn't been changed since I bought it in July 2008. But no worries! Scindapsus just keeps plugging away, slowly building leaf after leaf, without complaining or getting bugs. It's the damnedest thing.

I've had an S. pictus many years ago that wasn't nearly as forgiving; this is far enough in the past that I couldn't guess what the problem might have been. So it's possible that I've just been bizarrely lucky for five straight years.

I have yet to attempt propagation, because it's not necessarily a plant I want more of. Maybe someday.


6. Stromanthe sanguinea cvv.

Finally, I continue to be impressed with Stromanthe sanguinea. I have two varieties of it, 'Triostar' (shown) and 'Magicstar,' both of which are much easier to grow than anything from the Marantaceae ought to be.

It's not perfect. There's an unfortunate tendency to develop spider mites, and there are limits to how large of a pot I can use here in the house, because the root systems are relatively shallow and rot-prone, so I can only up-pot for just so long before it's time to start over again with a freshly-propagated plant. Even so, being able to grow something this attractive at all is awfully cool. And when I need to propagate, it's always been game, which is a definite bonus.


So see? I can say nice things about the plants sometimes.




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¹ No. Really. I am. It's okay. I don't mind. Usually.
² Though it's possible that I'm on the verge of figuring that one out. All the Hoyas that have succumbed to Sudden Hoya Death Syndrome were also not getting any direct sun at the time of death. The cause-and-effect relationship is murky, but in the absence of any other leads, I'm thinking this must be the key, somehow.
³ Which was a problem, because the plants around the oldest and largest Breynia were mostly Euphorbia trigona. Top-heavy thorny plants shouldn't be placed next to floppy-branched leafy plants, as a rule: you wind up losing hours of your life trying to untangle them from one another.
⁴ Next summer, though: look out! I'm putting the Beaucarnea outside, and fully expect it to grow substantially before autumn arrives. A friend in town has a Beaucarnea that she puts outside every year, and it is amazing. (Had I been thinking, I'd have gotten a picture for you, but I wasn't.)
⁵ It's 1) a very big plant, with 2) brown, woody stems and 3) lots of delicately-cut leaves, living 4) in a room where scale has recently been discovered. If scale decided to take up residence there, I stand very little chance of catching the infestation early. I've added some pre-emptive imidacloprid to the soil, as well as to the soil of some of its neighbors, but if you look closely at the photo, you may be able to make out a faint aura of doom around the plant.

Six Plants I'm Currently Mad At

This turns out to be a pretty competitive field (wait'll you see the Dishonorable Mentions), but I've narrowed it down to six. By "I'm Currently Mad At," I mean "the idea of throwing the plant away entirely and never attempting it again has crossed my mind," though that's only a serious possibility with three of the six plants on the list.

1. Phalaenopsis NOID
I am so tired of orchids and all their fucking orchid bullshit. I'm not even exaggerating for comic effect. I know I've said this before, but this time I'm telling you -- I'm telling you -- orchids and I are never ever getting back together.¹ Remember how cautiously excited I was two months ago?

Yes, well. I really should have known better. Here it is now:

And here's the end of the spike:

Yep. Just fell right off, the whole top of the spike, including all the flower buds. I have no idea what happened to it -- it's conceivable that the top of the spike got caught in the shelves when I took the plant off to water or something, but I feel like I would have remembered that. It can't really have been chewed off by an animal -- Sheba would have said something. So I'm thinking it just dropped the top of the flower spike as a way of giving me the finger, because it's an orchid, and orchids are fucking assholes.

The Phalaenopsis is being permitted to stay, for the time being, but the very first excuse I have to throw it out, it's going out. (Even if it calls me up and it's like, "I still love you.")


2. Furcraea foetida 'Medio-Picta'
If my fury at the Phalaenopsis is white-hot,² then with Furcraea I'm only a dull red. The plant's done well outside this year, and has grown some really nice, broad leaves, enough that I'm thinking the current pot is probably way too small for it. And for most of the summer, this was making me happy.

But I found a scale insect on it a week or two ago. So far, it's just been the one, and I did give the plant a pretty thorough inspection so that might be the extent of it, but what are the odds that it's really only one scale insect? Is it ever just one?

Et tu, Furcraea?


3. Polyscias balfouriana (variegated)
The Phalaenopsis is being spiteful, the Furcraea is disloyal, and the Polyscias balfouriana is catatonic. It's never been one of my best plants or anything, but when I got it, in July 2010, it looked like this:

And now, after growing for three years, one of the plants in the original pot has died,³ and the other looks like this:

Weak stem (it periodically leans over enough to throw itself off the shelf it lives on), not much foliage (that's actually the most it's had in a very long time, in that picture), regular spider mite infestations, which it passes to other plants -- P. balfouriana is another one that's probably going in the trash as soon as I have any kind of excuse. Considering its history, I should maybe not wait for an excuse.


4. Synadenium grantii
It was bad enough that Synadenium grantii caught the fungus that's been infecting all the Euphorbias.⁴ I moved it outside, in the hope that this would help it shake the fungus, and that actually seems to have worked.⁵ The problem is that it's not happy with being outside, either. Although when I did the research for the Synadenium profile, I found information telling me that they could survive temperatures down to about 20F / -7C, leaf damage apparently begins somewhere in the high 50s F, or about 14C, and takes the form of broad tan patches on exposed leaves:

I suppose this is my own fault, for not figuring out sooner that I was seeing cold damage. (I'd thought it was sunburn.) The plant could maybe have explained itself better, though.


5. Eucharis grandiflora
So I have three pots of Eucharis now. The one that's stayed in the house is doing fine. Not blooming or anything, but it's doing fine. The two that are getting to summer outdoors, on the other hand, started looking really ratty almost as soon as they went out. Well, I thought, that's to be expected -- probably it's a combination of sunburn and getting thrashed around by the wind. The replacement leaves will be better. But the replacement leaves were not better. And then, one day, I lifted up one of the pots for some reason and there was this fat, gray-green caterpillar underneath it. I picked it up and flung it into the yard, hoping the birds would deal with it. Then a few days later, I was watering, and I saw a similar-looking caterpillar, curled up, floating in the water inside the pot. So I picked it up and threw it out onto the driveway (figuring that the birds would be quicker to spot it on concrete than they would on grass). I haven't seen any caterpillars since then, but it almost doesn't matter: the replacement leaves are coming in slowly, and the older leaves are trashed almost beyond recognition. So the Eucharis won't be going outside next year either, even if they beg and plead and claim that that's the only way they'll ever flower.

The plants that got to go outside have, as a group, been very resistant to bugs -- the only other cases of visible insect damage outside have happened on two Agaves, and I think are also caterpillar-related. But the Eucharis have taken a real beating. Makes me unhappy.

The only positive note is that I have finally achieved houseplant pest bingo. (That'll teach me not to hope publicly for caterpillar infestations, even in jest.)


6. Epipremnum aureum 'Neon' and 'Marble Queen'
Lastly: I can grow Epipremnum aureum varieties just fine, beautifully even, so long as I avoid anything that they might interpret as transplanting.

Which is to say, I've had no problems water-rooting cuttings. But when I put the rooted cuttings into soil, I lose about two-thirds of them. Every single time, no exceptions. Soil-rooting cuttings is a little better, but even then, I lose about half. And repotting is a disaster every single time, no exceptions. (You'd think I would learn.)

'Neon' and 'Marble Queen' made the list because I've tried to root cuttings of 'Marble Queen,' and I've tried to repot 'Neon,' and both have been calamitous. Here's what 'Neon' looked like before the repotting:

And after repotting, removal of obviously dead vines, and cutting a few back in hopes that they'd resprout:

What did I do wrong? I have no idea. It certainly seemed like repotting was warranted: the plant was always wilted when its turn for water came around, sometimes badly, and it was dropping leaves as a result. Giving it more soil, to keep it wetter longer, seemed the logical solution. But instead, the plant punishes me by committing suicide. What a dick.

I don't have a photo for the 'Marble Queen' cuttings, but you'll have to just trust me that they look even worse. Everybody else in the entire world can do anything they like to this plant and it's fine, but -- I don't think it's for me.

So . . . yeah.

I'll have a post later, about plants that aren't making me angry, but I feel it's important for houseplant "experts"⁶ to acknowledge that there is no level of horticultural skill that will completely prevent plants from being douchebags.


Dishonorable mentions:

• Aloe variegata: overwatered, root rot. Still around. Unlikely to try again.
• Anthurium crystallinum 'Mehani:' never did very well here, probably due to dryer and cooler air than it would have liked. Was doing even less well this year, which I suspect might have been related to soil breakdown. Discarded. Almost certainly will never try again.
• Araucaria heterophylla (or maybe A. columnaris): root rot and massive branch drop because I overpotted last winter. Discarded. (This one was really painful: I'd had the plant for five and a half years.) I'll probably try it again.
• Begonia 'Puffy Clouds:' too much direct sun and/or too hot? Discarded. Unlikely to try again.
• Columnea microphylla: sudden decline for no discernable reason. Discarded. Unlikely to try again.
• Cyanotis kewensis: stem dieback, possibly due to underwatering. Still around.
• Episcia 'Pink Smoke:' Never did well. Discarded. Unlikely to try again.
• Episcia "prayer plant:" too wet, too dry, or possibly both at once. Still around. Will probably restart from cuttings.
• Episcia 'Suomi:' slow steady decline that turned into a fast and ever-accelerating decline; reason unknown. (I'm getting pretty fed up with Episcias.) Still around, but only barely. Will probably allow to remain until it dies and then not try it again.
• Euphorbia milii hybrid with large yellow flowers: I cannot make the fungus go away on the small specimen (indoors); the large specimen got blown over repeatedly so the leaves are all creased/torn/punctured/scarred. Still around.
• Euphorbia pseudocactus: one tall stem turned brown and rotted away for no obvious reason very early in the summer. A second big tall new branch started growing after that. It managed to hold itself erect for about a week, then flopped over, and has been growing more or less horizontally ever since. The rest of the plant isn't doing anything and never really has. Still around.
• Euphorbia tirucalli 'Firesticks:' tried to blind me that one time. Still around.
• Euphorbia trigona: I cannot get rid of the fungus on the cuttings in the basement, though the parents, outdoors, are doing okay. Still around.
• Euphorbia trigona 'Red:' I cannot get rid of the fungus, but also the parent plants won't branch and sometimes get root rot. Still around.
• Ficus 'Green Island:' sort of continuously dropping leaves, whether in or outside. Refuses to grow vertically. Still around.
• Gasteraloe 'Green Gold:' definite severe root rot, due to overwatering. Still around, but unlikely to make it back into the house this fall. Unlikely to try again.
• Gasteraloe 'Midnight:' has never liked me very much. Probably some root rot. Almost certainly will never try again.
• Homalomena 'Emerald Gem:' both under- and overwatered, leading to substantial defoliation. And then the bugs (spider mite-like, but I was never sure if they really were spider mites) showed up. Discarded. I'm not desperate to replace it, but I might at some point, if I see one cheap.
• Kohleria 'Queen Victoria:' (chronically?) miswatered. Discarded. Pretty much certain never to try again.
• Neoregelia 'Fireball:' never rebounded from a repotting several years ago; I don't know what its problem was. Discarded. Unlikely to try again.
• Pereskia aculeata var. godseffiana: scale. Discarded. I still have a back-up plant.
• Philodendron erubescens 'Red Emerald:' small, weak growth for about a year, year and a half now. Lots of leaf drop. Still around.
• Schefflera actinophylla: has not performed well outdoors. A tremendous amount of leaf drop, poor color, gets blown over a lot by the wind. Still around. I'll keep growing it, probably, but it's not going outside again next summer.
• Selenicereus anthonyanus: does not appear to understand how to grow the long, weird stems that are the main reason to grow it. I don't know why it won't and S. chrysocardium will. Still around.
• Vriesea splendens: flowered, then started to produce a replacement rosette, but the replacement rosette is really struggling for no obvious reason. Still around, but I suspect its days are numbered. The smaller duplicate plant rotted out and died last March.
• Zamioculcas zamiifolia: another one like Epipremnum aureum, that does beautifully until I try to pot it up, at which point it begins falling apart. A less water-retentive potting mix might help, but I'm more inclined to just let it die and never attempt to grow it again: I don't especially like the look of it in the first place. (The leaflet cuttings of 'Zamicro' are doing fine, but I haven't tried to repot them, either. Maybe I never will.)

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¹ Unless it's one of the blue-dyed Phalaenopsis, because I have a theory about the identity of the blue dye that I'd like to test. So I might buy one of those, but only so that I could grind up the flowers in a mortar and pestle and perform science experiments on them. Which would actually probably be kind of cathartic.
Also: sorry for the earworm. I couldn't resist.
² Probably more blue-hot, I think. (I feel like most of the energy being given off by my fury is being emitted in the ultraviolet / soft x-ray range.)
³ (I cut it back because it was hitting the lights and scorching, but it didn't resprout. I kept hoping, because the stem was staying firm, even if it wasn't producing a new growing tip, but eventually it went soft and I pulled it out of the pot.)
⁴ Synadenium grantii is officially Euphorbia umbellata, according to Plant List. The name I learned before that was Euphorbia pseudograntii. I'm sticking with the name I learned originally, partly because the taxonomists don't seem to have made up their collective mind yet, and partly because if I do decide to change it, there's a whole lot of blog posts that'll need to be edited too, and I would prefer not to do that.
⁵ It worked better on some species than others. E. lactea and E. tirucalli cleared up pretty quickly but weren't that bad off in the first place; Euphorbia milii and Synadenium grantii had pretty serious problems but improved after a few weeks. E. trigona took most of the summer to get there, but is good at the moment, as far as I can see. Pedilanthus 'Jurassic Park 2' may never shake the fungus.
⁶ (a designation I'm not happy seeing applied to myself, by the way)

List: Missing From Retail, Part 5 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

So here we are at the end. It's been fun, right?

Russelia equisetiformis Photo by Eurico Zimbres, via Wikimedia Commons.
I have seen Russelia equisetiformis (firecracker plant, coral plant) for sale in Iowa once, maybe twice. The ex-job has had them. I don't know if they sold, or if they died really fast, but either way, they weren't around for very long. I have no idea what they'd be like to grow indoors, but they do get a lot bigger than I expected from the (mostly close-up) pictures in the books. I'd think providing adequate light would be a problem.

Salpiglossis sinuata cv. Photo by Hephaestos, via Wikimedia Commons.
I've never seen Salpiglossis cvv. (painted tongue) plants for sale, nor can I recall seeing the seeds anywhere. The seeds part could just be me not paying attention, but I know I would remember seeing the flowers.

The commenters at davesgarden.com remark a couple times on the plants' tendency to wilt suddenly for no apparent reason, so it could be that it's difficult for growers to maintain a healthy-looking stock. Where they are sold, they are apparently typically marketed as annuals, though I believe they are actually perennials if protected from cold (USDA zone 8-11).

I encountered one reference to Salpiglossis that suggested its unavailability is mostly a matter of fashion, not a matter of difficulty. Fern also claims that Salpiglossis has come "roaring back" into fashion recently. I can't say I've seen any evidence of that here in Iowa.

Schizanthus wisetonensis 'Angel Wings.'
While researching this post, I've had a tough time keeping Schizanthus cvv. (butterfly flower, poor man's orchid) distinct in my mind from Salpiglossis; the two names both begin and end with "s," are nearly the same length, and are alphabetically close to one another, so I guess my brain would like them to be the same plant. Having now seen several photos of different varieties of each, though, I believe I can finally tell them apart. If nothing else, there's a clue in the name: schizo- means "split," so that'd be the one with the split petals.

I've never seen Schizanthus around here either, though there are a number of websites referring to growing them from seed, or growing them indoors, so apparently this really is something that people do. I couldn't swear I've never seen seeds for sale.

They're typically sold as annuals, but in mild climates may be short-lived perennials, so maybe it's the "short-lived" part that's the problem? They also need a lot of sun, are slow to start from seed, and at least one site said they prefer cool, humid conditions. Any of those could be a problem; all of them together seems like it would definitively rule them out as indoor plants. And yet, there they are in the books (Crockett and Kramer) anyway.


Senecio confusus 'Sao Paulo.' My photo.
I've only seen Senecio confusus once or twice; the first time (photographed above) was at the ex-job, and I can't recall for sure whether there was a second time or not. Its identity may be somewhat in flux: I found some sites claiming that it had been changed to Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides. Plant List says that both Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides and S. confusus are accepted names for (I assume) different species, so I don't actually even know what plant we're talking about.

It's another vining plant, that has the potential to get big (vines to 10-12 feet / 3.0-3.7 m long), which is possibly the only reason one needs not to grow it in one's house. That said, it's apparently also really easy to propagate, so it could probably be restarted regularly, whenever it gets too large. It also needs a lot of light.


Solanum pseudocapsicum? My photo.
Solanum pseudocapsicum (Jerusalem cherry; winter cherry; various botanical synonyms including S. capsicastrum) has never interested me that much, even when I saw it in books, but while I was reading through them in preparation for these posts, I noticed that it seemed to come up quite a bit (Kramer, Crockett, Powell). I've only ever seen it at the ex-job. If I remember correctly, that only happened a couple times, and they dropped a lot of leaves shortly after arrival on both occasions.

The consensus at davesgarden.com is that they need cool bright conditions in the winter. They're possibly also not helped by their fairly plain appearance when not bearing fruit (though that doesn't stop people from growing Citrus), their appeal to bugs (not personally experienced, but that's the claim here) or the poisonous foliage and fruit.

Sonerila pulchella. Photo credited to Alexey Yakovlev, kind of obviously. Found via (and owned by?) TopTropicals.com. Used in compliance with the non-commercial use guidelines on this page.
Only the Kramer book mentioned Sonerila cvv. (sonerila), and there's remarkably little about them on-line either, so it's entirely possible that they're not missing from retail so much as not yet arrived in retail. I had to go through four pages of Google results to find a single mention of them as a cultivated plant, and that (WARNING: autoplay video/audio) wasn't really what you'd call informative. (Houseplantsguru.com, on page 5 of the Google results, covers most of the same information in a much less chaotic context, and page 6 gives us the French version, which I can't read but possibly some of you can.)

There's near-universal consensus that they're attractive plants (many of the Google results are links to sonerila drawings, paintings, or photography), so I have to assume that there's a problem with them being too slow, or too touchy, for mass production. They do apparently demand a lot of warmth and high humidity, if nothing else.

Stanhopea radiosa. Photo: Orchi. Found via Wikimedia Commons.
(I'm fairly certain that I've seen Stanhopea spp./cvv. (no common name?) on the blog of at least one person I follow, but I can't remember who, or where. If I could remember that, I'd link to you, so if you think you might be the person I'm remembering, say something in the comments.)

I've never seen a Stanhopea for sale around here, even from specialty sellers or at the orchid show. Why not? No clue: they're apparently cultivated all the time. The short life of the flowers (~3 days, per Wikipedia), need for cooler temperatures (according to this care sheet, anyway) and odd growth habit (the flower spikes typically grow down instead of up, requiring plants to be hung for best display, and necessitating the use of special pots with holes in the sides) might all be factors.

Trachelospermum jasminoides. Photo by Wouter Hagens, via Wikimedia Commons.
Trachelospermum jasminoides (confederate jasmine, star jasmine) doesn't seem to be sold around here, though some of the true jasmines (Jasminum spp.) are. Not sure why this would be: a quick look around the internet didn't turn up anything especially damning. They can get to be big, heavy plants, but they restart easily from cuttings, so that shouldn't be a problem, and unlike a lot of the plants on these lists, Trachelospermum doesn't appear to require a cool winter (though cool winters are apparently not a problem, either). And I can't even remember the last time I heard so many people gush so hard about a single plant. (Not that the davesgarden.com people are reliable gushers: they think Aspidistra elatior is a nice plant too.) So there's no huge, obvious reason why Trachelospermum wouldn't sell in Iowa. I might even be interested in a little one, if only to see why it's such a big deal.


Tolmiea menziesii. My photo.
I really, really tried with Tolmiea menziesii (piggyback plant, youth on age), but . . . no. Just no. At least some of my problem is that it's too warm in here -- they do prefer cool, humid air -- but I was never able to get watering right either.

It's not like they're even pretty; I'd gotten one because I'd been under the impression that they were fairly easy plants. They grew well in the greenhouse at work, so I figured they'd grow well for me too.

I do still see Tolmiea occasionally -- the ex-job has had large hanging baskets once or twice, and I'm pretty sure I've seen 4" plants at one other place in Iowa City as well -- but it's pretty rare. Fine by me.

Veltheimia bracteata 'Lemon Flame.' Photo by BotBln, via Wikimedia Commons.
Veltheimia cvv. (forest lily, cape lily, bush lily) do still get sold, if you know the right places. Unfortunately, none of those places seem to be in Eastern Iowa. V. bracteata is apparently a very nice houseplant, for people who can provide enough light, and who don't panic at a short summer dormancy. (Which rules me out, twice.)

The Bulb Maven attributes their disappearance to the whims of fashion,¹ rather than difficulty providing the right growing conditions. Could be, I suppose, though I have no memories of them ever being widely available.


As I noted, I'm mildly curious about Trachelospermum jasminoides, unless someone can provide a compelling reason for me not to be. Schizanthus or Stanhopea would be my wouldn't-it-be-cool-if plants, from this group, but I don't anticipate ever actually trying them.


Not pictured:

• Rechsteineria cardinalis (cardinal flower): have never seen.
• Reinwardtia indica (syn. R. trigyna, yellow flax): have never seen.
• Rivinia humilis (pigeonberry, rouge plant): have never seen.
• Ruellia makoyana (monkey plant, Mexican wild petunia, trailing velvet plant): have never seen in person, though I see photos all over the place.
• Schizocentron elegans (creeping princess flower): have never seen.
• species Schlumbergeras: have never seen in person, though I'm pretty sure I've run into Schlumbergera gaertneri (now possibly Hatiora gaertneri) for sale a few times on the internet.
• Sprekelia formosissima (Aztec lily, Jacobean lily): have never seen, but I ran into a few sellers on-line while writing this.
• Streptosolen jamesonii (marmalade bush, orange browallia): have never seen.
• Tabernaemontana divaricata (crepe jasmine): have never seen for sale. No idea if I've ever seen them in person.
• Tetranema roseum (Mexican violet, Mexican foxglove): have never seen.
• Tetrapanax papyriferus (rice-paper plant): have never seen for sale, though I've seen it on blogs, Danger Garden in particular, so I know they're out there.
• Tibouchina semidecandra (princess flower, glory bush): have never seen.
• Tulbaghia fragrans (sweet garlic, pink agapanthus): have never seen.
• Vallota (apparently Cyrtanthus now; no common name?): have never seen.
• Zephyranthes candida (rain lily, zephyr lily, fairy lily): have never seen.

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¹ (Also known as "plant obsolescence.")

List: Missing From Retail, Part 4 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 5)

Medinilla cv. My photo.
WCW said she'd tried Medinilla cvv. (rose grape, medinilla) indoors before, and it hadn't done that well for her, but I don't remember any details beyond that. I also know that they tend not to do that great in the ex-job's greenhouse in the long term,¹ though that hasn't stopped them from ordering them more than once.

When I googled Medinilla, I found a lot of photos of them indoors in containers, usually in pristinely clean and expensive-looking surroundings, accompanied by breathless, over-caffeinated ad copy about what wonderful, wonderful houseplants they are. So it's possible that we'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Nandina domestica. Photo by KENPEI, via Wikimedia Commons.
I can't say I've ever had any strong urge to try growing Nandina domestica (heavenly bamboo, sacred bamboo), so I haven't been terribly bothered by not being able to find one. It's my understanding that they're not particularly beloved outdoor plants, though most of the objections raised at davesgarden.com have to do with their rapid spread and drought tolerance, both of which would be a positive indoors. ("Tacky-looking / cliched," "I think I'm allergic," "ecologically disastrous," and "poisonous" are also represented.)

Although Nandina is an FLEPPC Class I (has produced documented ecological damage) invasive plant, it's not illegal to produce it or sell it in Florida. Since there's no legal barrier, I expect that they're unavailable in the north due to a lack of demand.

Neomarica caerulea. Photo by Denis Conrado, via Wikimedia Commons.
Neomarica spp. (walking iris, apostle plant) are apparently mostly passalong plants, so there's no money in producing them commercially. I don't know what they're like to grow indoors, and I haven't personally seen anybody growing one, but by most accounts they're pretty easy. (I'm somewhat interested in getting a Neomarica, eventually, someday.)

Osmanthus fragrans. My photo.
When my Osmanthus fragrans (sweet olive, tea olive) first arrived, I had it in the house, hoping for ongoing blooming so we'd get to smell the flowers all the time,² but it didn't bloom. And then it got spider mites. So it spent the summer outside. It seemed to like that well enough, though it didn't grow very much, and it didn't rebloom out there either.

Then, after it came inside, it dropped a lot of the new leaves it had just grown. So we don't seem to be getting along, is kind of the upshot. Some googling brought up this page from the Missouri Botanical Garden, in which it is said "In St. Louis, grow in containers which must be overwintered indoors in bright cool locations."

Which probably explains it, 'cause mine's in a warm dim location. So I'll try to fix that and then get back to you.

None of this explains why I never see them for sale. (I'd think they would sell really well, given the fragrance.) This Garden Web thread suggests that Osmanthus might be another plant that would rather have an unheated sunporch than central heating.


Pandanus utilis. My photo, from the Quad Cities Botanical Center.
I feel like I pretty well covered the reasons why Pandanus spp. (screw pines) might not be more available in their profile, but in case you don't want to read it all: both Pandanus utilis and P. veitchii can get huge; both have sharp, unpleasant spines along the leaf margins and on the underside of the leaves along the midrib; P. veitchii is so easily propagated that it's probably a passalong. These all seem like perfectly good reasons why they might not be found in retail very often.³

I'm still trying to get a P. utilis of my own, though. Someday.

Phoenix roebelenii. Photo by Forest & Kim Starr, via Wikimedia Commons.
I've seen Phoenix roebelinii (pygmy date palm, miniature date palm) at the ex-job once, I think, when I first started working there, and I've run into them at Lowe's occasionally since then, but they're not easy to find around here. Something that isn't always obvious from their photos in the books is, they're full of extremely sharp, long (to at least 3.5 inches / 9 cm!) thorns, especially near the base of the fronds. Worse, when I started working there, the ex-job's Phoenix was displayed underneath a huge Ficus benjamina, which dropped leaves into it all the time. Much blood was shed before I learned that there was just no safe way to get the Ficus leaves out of the Phoenix pot, and decided to move the Phoenix instead.

The thorns are bad enough that I'd never actually want to own one myself, but even if I did, Phoenix also gets too large for me, "pygmy" date palm notwithstanding. It probably also needs more sun than I have. Those might also be factors for other people.

Pilea microphylla. My photo.
Nobody seems to grow Pilea microphylla (artillery plant) on purpose anymore, and I've only seen it deliberately sold once (and that was a strangely-colored variety). On the other hand, I still run into it in stores on a pretty regular basis: they're weedy, and hitchhike in the pots of more desirable plants.

I've grown it once; I pulled it out of some other plant's pot and gave it its own. That worked fine for several months, and then it suddenly collapsed. I have no idea why. (The timing and location were such that scale might have been a factor. I don't know.) I wasn't that crazy about it in the first place, so I haven't tried to replace it.

Pittosporum tobira. Photo by Piotrus, via Wikimedia Commons.
I don't find Pittosporum spp. (pittosporum, Japanese mock-orange) very interesting. Apparently the flowers smell nice, but the look of the plants, even the variegated ones, do nothing for me. But hey, some people juggle geese.

I gather Pittosporum also prefers cool temperatures during the winter, and is therefore probably another victim of changing home construction, though I'm not 100% sure on that. According to Monrovia, they're only cold-hardy to USDA zone 8, so you wouldn't think they'd want a lot of cold in the winter. I don't know.

Portea petropolitana. Photo by BotBln, via Wikimedia Commons.
Portea spp. (no common name)⁴ aren't particularly common in the houseplant books, granted, but the Powell book lists a whole bunch of bromeliads I've never seen for sale, and this is one of them, so Portea is kind of standing in for all those (which also include Bromelia, Catopsis, Nidularium, and Quesnelia). The photo above was the best one I found for showing the leaves and inflorescence at the same time, but doesn't do a particularly good job selling the plant overall: it might be clearer why Portea would be desirable from some of the photos of inflorescences. (P. alatisepala, P. kermesina, P. leptantha, P. petropolitana. Don't skip that last one; the colors are particularly interesting.)

The leaf margins are heavily spined, which might explain some of the problem with Porteas (though it doesn't look any worse than some of the Aechmeas or Neoregelias I've seen for sale). Beyond that, there's no obvious problem. Poking around with Google turned up some evidence that they may need a lot of sun, and some of them do get large. They are sold here and there on-line as outdoor plants for people in tropical climates, so it stands to reason that they could be put on trucks and shipped north as easily as anything else could. I'd be interested in a Portea someday, too.

Punica granatum. My (terrible) photo.
I've personally met a couple people who grew Punica granatum (pomegranate) indoors, and the ex-job was selling them the last time I was there, so Punica isn't missing from retail as much as just exceedingly rare. (That's the only time I can recall seeing them in retail.) Not sure why that is; by one of those people's accounts, it wasn't particularly difficult, though I don't know how long he'd had it.

The Missouri Botanical Garden suggests that the species is probably not that easy to keep indoors, but the variety P. granatum 'Nana' is better suited to use as a houseplant. The comments at davesgarden.com were all uniformly positive on 'Nana' as well, though it's not clear where they were all buying their plants.


I'm desperate to get a Pandanus utilis someday, even knowing that I don't have room for it. I could sort of understand why someone might want to own any of the others, too, but I'm only really interested in Pandanus, Neomarica, and Portea.


Not pictured:

• Miltoniopsis spp./cvv. (pansy orchid): have seen very occasionally, in orchid-specialist contexts.
• Myrtus communis (myrtle, true myrtle): have never seen.
• Nerine bowdenii (spider lily): have never seen. (Wikipedia suggests some of the reason could be because they respond badly to being moved.)
• Nicotiana (flowering tobacco): some cultivars seasonally available as annuals or as seeds, but I've never known anybody who was growing them year-round indoors.
• Nidularium (bromeliad): never seen.
• Olea europaea (olive): rarely seen, and super-expensive when they are seen.
• Pentas (pentas, star flower): seasonally available as annuals.
• Petrea volubilis (queen's wreath, sandpaper vine): never seen. (Images from Google show a huge, vining plant that I imagine doesn't stay contained for very long.)
• Philodendron hastatum (silver philodendron): have seen occasionally at the ex-job.
• Pleione formosana (Himalayan crocus, windowsill orchid): have never seen, though it's possible I've seen hybrids for sale at some point.
• Plumbago spp. (plumbago, leadwort): as outdoor perennials; never as houseplant.
• Primula (primrose, auricula, cowslip, oxlip): seasonally as temporary indoor plants.
• Quesnelia (bromeliad): never seen.

As with the other posts in this series, readers are encouraged to leave comments about their experiences with seeing, buying, or growing any of the above, or speculating on why I don't see them for sale (especially if your speculation conflicts with mine).

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¹ From what I've seen, mostly what happens is that the leaves get burnt tips or margins, and then get torn. So maybe a humidity problem, or drought stress from underwatering?
² (previous Osmanthus post here)
³ There's also the matter of customers not buying them even when given the opportunity. Oh how I tried, but customers are not that into four-foot-wide (1.2 m) plants where every leaf has three rows of hooked spines pointing in different directions, no matter how easy you tell them the plant is to grow.
⁴ And no, this is not a misspelling of the better-known plant Protea.

List: Missing From Retail, Part 3 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 4) (Part 5)

Gibasis geniculata. My photo.
Gibasis geniculata (Tahitian bridal veil), honestly, is kind of annoying, and I don't blame any retailer for not stocking it if they don't want to. We had a few hanging baskets of it at the ex-job when I started working there, and they were forever getting tangled in one another, or other plants. The stems broke easily but remained tangled, so unless we put a lot of very careful, nitpicky work into it, they'd always have dead stems running through the mass of foliage, which didn't look good. The flowers were fine, I guess, and it was actually a pretty easy plant to grow, but it was messy, inconvenient, and not nearly pretty enough to make up for the hassle.

Gloriosa rothschildiana. Photo by Jean-Jacques MILAN, originally posted to Wikimedia Commons.
Is the problem with Gloriosa spp. and cvv. (glory lily) that they're super-poisonous? Maybe. They're in a lot of the books, but I've never seen one for sale up here. Perhaps the growth habit is awkward: it's hard to tell from the photos I've seen (which are mostly close-ups of the flower, for obvious reasons). Maybe they don't flower reliably indoors. Maybe the United Nations is using their black helicopters to keep them out of the state of Iowa, because something-something one-world government.

I don't have any idea. It seems like if it had ever been a good idea to grow them in the house, it would probably still be a good idea to grow them in the house. And certainly the flowers are lovely. I'm baffled.

Grevillea robusta. Photo by Forest & Kim Starr, found via Wikipedia.
In each of the lists so far, there's been a Big Mystery plant, a plant that's widely described among houseplant books of a certain age, but has completely disappeared from the houseplant trade (at least in my personal experience). In the first list, it was Aucuba japonica, which turns out to be widely available, just not where I am or for the uses I would put it to. In the second, Geogenanthus poeppigii. My questions about that one were met with utter silence, so I conclude that either no one cares, or no one knows (perhaps because no one cares).

That plant for this list is Grevillea robusta (silk oak). Where did they all go? And why? Were there ever very many in the first place?

I know there are Grevilleas still being sold for outdoor use. Danger Garden grows a few of them (G. juniperina, G. lanigera, G. victoriae, etc.), and I'm pretty sure Far Out Flora has at least mentioned them once or twice as well. So it's not like the genus has suddenly gone extinct.

I've seen some references to G. robusta having skin-irritant properties similar to those of poison ivy, which could something to do with it. (The older books don't mention this, though.) Though that doesn't seem to be stopping anybody from growing them outdoors. Maybe they're another victim of the changing standards in new-home construction? If they can be grown outdoors in the Northwest U.S., that suggests that they probably don't mind cold too much. I don't know.


Haemanthus albiflos. Photo from a PATSP reader; addressed in this post.
Haemanthus albiflos (elephant's tongue, shaving-brush plant) and other Haemanthus spp. are probably not helped by their slow growth rates, but by most accounts H. albiflos is pretty easy to grow,¹ and the flowers may not be gorgeous but they're at least interesting. If there's a market for Philodendron hederaceum, I'd think there would be a market for Haemanthus.

The only guess I can come up with is that maybe it's not sold very often because it's a passalong?² That's how I wound up with mine; maybe that's how everybody gets them.


Heliconia psittacorum 'Bright Lights.' My photo.
I've seen Heliconia psittacorum 'Bright Lights' for sale a couple times at the ex-job, and I assume other Heliconia cvv. (lobster claw, false bird of paradise) are probably available further south. (The main appeal of H. psittacorum is, I think, that it's relatively small for a Heliconia; many of them get big.) Both I and WCW³ have tried them indoors, and neither of us was particularly satisfied. We both got spider mites; my plant also seemed to want more humid air than it was getting, and was either getting underwatered or overwatered but it would never tell me which.

So I wouldn't try this again, but it did do surprisingly well for several months after I first got it, so Heliconia might still work for some people. Even if it isn't a great choice for your average plant-buyer, the inflorescences can last for a long time, so I'd think retailers might still be able to display them profitably. I don't have any guesses as to why they don't.


I could find plenty of copyrighted photos of small container-grown plants, or I could find Creative Commons photos of full-grown adult outdoor plants, but I couldn't find any pictures showing a small containerized plant that I was legally able to reuse.
It is entirely possible that I see Howea forsteriana (kentia palm) for sale all the time and just don't realize it. I can't really distinguish between Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, Howea forsteriana, and Chamaedorea cataractum, in large part because I've never been able to directly compare all three. In fact, I've only actually seen Howea forsteriana tagged as Howea forsteriana once. This is despite several books' claims that they're either the best or second-best palm to have indoors. (Chamaedorea elegans generally being the other one.⁴)

The reason is that they germinate and grow so slowly that it's not really cost-effective for growers to produce them. People will buy the much faster-growing Ravenea rivularis (majesty palm) just as readily, so Ravenea can be sold for less than half the cost of Howea. Raveneas are also, of course, very poorly suited to indoor conditions, but the long-term fate of the plant is irrelevant to the growers (they already have your money either way), so they don't factor it in.

I don't know how to fix this situation. I can recommend that people ask for Howeas specifically, but I don't have first-hand experience that they're any better than Chrysalidocarpus or Chamaedorea, and I don't know how to tell the difference anyway. I could get first-hand experience, and learn how to tell the difference, if any producers ever sent them to the stores for me to look at, buy, and grow, but the producers can't do that because the consumers wouldn't buy them. The consumers might buy them, if only they knew that they wanted them. I could tell the consumers they wanted to buy them, if I were able to distinguish between the three species and had first-hand experience growing them. Wheeee!


Jatropha multifida. My photo, taken at the Quad City Botanical Center.
I've seen Jatropha podagrica (Buddha belly plant) at Wallace's once; we never got any Jatropha spp. at the ex-job, though they were on the availability lists occasionally. Pretty sure I've never seen Jatrophas for sale anywhere else, though the QCBC has J. multifida (coral plant, Guatemalan rhubarb), as you can see in the above photo, so I've at least seen the two most cultivated species.

I've never grown one personally; I understand they probably need more sun than I could offer. Other than that, I really don't have much to go on. As far as I can tell, temperature wouldn't be an issue. Maybe slow growth? Unappealing form?

Lachenalia aloides. Photo by BotBln, from Wikimedia Commons.
Holy crap, some Lachenalia spp./cvv. (no common name?) have some damn beautiful flowers. (There's a red one! And a turquoise-blooming one! And one with four-colored flowers!) And although one of the books which mentions Lachenalia has been in my possession for about a quarter-century, I had somehow never been consciously aware of them before now.

Now that I've noticed them, read up on them, and come to appreciate how pretty some of them are, I will have to forget them all again. Both books that mention Lachenalia agree that they need temperatures much colder than I'd ever be able to provide in the house (60-65F during the day, 40-45F at night). Which is a pretty obvious explanation for why I never see Lachenalia for sale.

Lapageria rosea. Photo credit: KENPEI, at Wikimedia Commons.
Lapageria rosea (Chilean bell flower) is another plant I know only from the Kramer book. Or almost, anyway -- Talking Plants did a post about Lapageria not too long ago as well, though he doesn't mention it being cultivated indoors.

Kramer calls it "a challenge," but doesn't include many specifics about the ways in which it might be challenging, and says it's "difficult to bloom," but also says "can tolerate abuse if necessary and still bloom." So no clues there. It's another climber, which is possibly significant: beyond that I don't even have a guess.

Manettia luteo-rubra. My photo.
I've seen Manettia luteo-rubra (firecracker plant, candy corn plant) for sale here as an outdoor annual, but not very often, and I didn't find them very impressive. I don't know of anyone who's tried to grow it indoors. The two books that mention it don't agree on the care it needs, though neither one makes it sound particularly difficult. Maybe it's just not interesting enough for people to care?


I understand Haemanthus is pretty easy indoors, and although I never did it personally, I'd bet Gibasis is very easy as well. I might be interested in Jatropha, in theory, even if I probably don't have the light it wants. And I would really like to try Howea at some point, if only to see what all the fuss is about, but it looks like the only way that's ever going to happen is if I start them myself from seed.


Not pictured:

• Hedychium gardnerianum (kahili ginger, ginger lily): have never seen.
• Hoya australis / bella (wax plants): I'm pretty sure I've seen H. bella around here occasionally; I don't recall H. australis, though.
• Ixia spp./cvv. (corn lily): have never seen.
• Ixora (West Indian jasmine, jungle geranium): the ex-job has them occasionally, I think. I have trouble distinguishing between Ixora and Pentas, for some reason, but I'm pretty sure they've had both.
• Justicia brandegeana and carnea (shrimp plants): I've seen J. brandegeana once at the ex-job; not sure if I've run into them elsewhere or not.
• Kohleria cvv. (kohleria): have never seen in retail. The ones I've tried to grow haven't done well.
• Limonium (sea lavender, statice): the ex-job had one once, as an outdoor annual (?), but I think that was the only time I've seen any for sale at all, much less as a houseplant.
• Liriope (lilyturf): sometimes available around here as an annual or tender perennial. One from the ex-job survived for me for a while indoors, but it never grew much, and spent its last year or so looking decidedly unhappy.
• Lycaste spp. (lycaste): have never seen.
• Malpighia coccigera (dwarf holly, miniature holly): may have seen as a faux bonsai, but the pictures that come up in Google don't look particularly familiar.
• Malvaviscus arboreus (turk's cap mallow, nodding hibiscus): have never seen.
• Masdevallia spp./cvv. (masdevallia): have seen at Orchids and Moore, the specialty orchid-seller in Iowa City, and possibly at the Quad Cities orchid shows (can't remember if any of those were for sale or not), but that's it.

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¹ I've only just gotten one myself, so I'll let you know eventually, I suppose.
² (A plant that is so easy to propagate that offsets or cuttings or whatever get distributed from gardener to gardener directly, without ever being part of the commercial trade.)
³ (Remember her? I haven't seen WCW in forever, sadly.)
⁴ Which has not been my experience -- my best palm has been either Chamaedorea metallica or Rhapis excelsa, depending on the criteria you want to use for "best." But that's off-topic.