Anthurium no. 0112 "Dottie A. Rebel"

Dottie presents me with an interesting question, and maybe also answer, about genetics.

The first thing I noticed when the bloom opened up was that Dottie's ID number is very close to other seedlings that have bloomed -- 0108 "Deena Sequins," 0110 "Delta Badhand," and 0116 "Eileen Dover." Which suggested that maybe they were all from the same cross.

And when I looked, I found that three of the four (Deena, Delta, and Dottie) had the same seed parent (NOID purple) and sow date (21 December 2011), so they are definitely from the same cross. Eileen, though, is from a different seed parent ('Orange Hot'), with close to the same sow date (7 December 2011). So possibly there was a reciprocal cross done between the NOID purple and 'Orange Hot' during the summer of 2011, which resulted in these four more or less identical-looking seedlings.

Two other seedlings resemble 0108, 0110, 0112, and 0116. 0046 "Aurora Boreanaz" fits the theory fine, or at least doesn't contradict it: Aurora's seed parent is also the NOID purple. 0132 "Eve Stropper" is trickier. Eve's seed parent is 'Gemini.' None of the seedlings can have the NOID purple, 'Gemini,' and 'Orange Hot' as its parents simultaneously, so obviously more than one cross is capable of producing a bloom like this.

So what's the most distinctive thing about these six? It's not the color -- I've seen plenty of red spathes, after all -- it's that the spadices match the spathes. So I looked at all the blooms so far where the spathe and spadix match, and what the seed parent was in those cases. There were three from 'Gemini,'

five from the NOID purple,

one from the NOID red,

five from 'Orange Hot,'

and seventeen from 'White Gemini.'

The parent plants 'Gemini' and the NOID red have contrasting spadices. So they're probably not where this characteristic comes from. I suspect that although the spadix and spathe match on 'White Gemini,' it probably has the genes for a contrasting spadix, since it was supposedly discovered as a mutant of 'Gemini.'¹ It's certainly imaginable that 'Gemini,' the NOID red, or 'White Gemini' might have recessive matching-spadix genes or something, since they're all hybrids, but if we're just making a guess anyway, it seems simpler to assume that the matching-spadix genes are coming from plants with matching spadices.

There's another hint in that as far as I've seen, 'Gemini' and 'White Gemini' have never produced pollen for me. Which means that unless they're being super-sneaky about it, they're probably not the ones introducing the matching-spadix genes.

The NOID red can probably be ruled out on the grounds that it has some pretty distinctive characteristics (large, wide, flat dark green leaves which are sometimes red or brown while developing, green spadices, sometimes a peculiar angle to the way they hold their leaves), which it tends to impart to its offspring, and none of the plants from the red/red group have any of those characteristics.

Three other parent varieties with matching spadices could have been part of the genetic mix when 0112 was being conceived -- a NOID pink which sometimes produces pollen but has been mostly unsuccessful at producing seeds and seedlings,² and 'Red Hot,' which looks a lot like the 0046/0108/0110/0112/0116/0132 group, but has only ever produced one seedling, which didn't even survive. And which I can't remember ever producing any pollen. In fact, it's been at least a couple years since 'Red Hot' even bloomed, and it's never been a strong bloomer for me. So 'Red Hot' is probably not where these seedlings came from, however much they may resemble it. The third possibility is 'Pandola,' which does a weird thing where the spadix is initially pink or orange-pink at the base and yellow towards the end. (The two-color thing isn't distinctive, but the specific colors involved are.) 'Pandola' definitely produces both pollen and seeds both, but the two-tone spadices are distinctive.³ And the red-red group doesn't have those.

Consequently, I conclude that 0046, 0108, 0110, 0112, and 0116 are all probably 'Orange Hot' x NOID purple, and 0132 is probably 'Gemini' x 'Orange Hot,' though 'Gemini' x NOID purple can't be ruled out.

That's what I'm guessing from looking at Dottie. Am I right? Am I wrong? Probably some of both. Perhaps plant paternity testing will be cheap enough someday that I can find out for sure. In the meantime, I can entertain myself by guessing.

As far as deciding whether Dottie specifically is a keeper or not, well, I have no particular problem with the bloom.

I often don't like matching spadices, but I find red/red and orange/orange a lot less objectionable than pink/pink.

The leaves are perfectly typical, mostly unblemished Anthurium foliage,

and the plant as a whole is notable mostly for how long and unmanageable it is, though I guess it's also worth mentioning that it's done some spontaneous branching, which not all Anthuriums will bother with. The branching is completely obscured in this photo, but trust me it's there:

So on balance, I guess I'm fine with Dottie and would expect to keep her around for a while -- at least long enough to see whether she'll reproduce -- except that she has also had the bad luck to be living on one of the three shelves in the basement with scale-infested Anthuriums. I can't remember for certain, but I don't think I've seen scale on Dottie specifically yet,⁴ so there's hope, but I also periodically think maybe I should just sweep the whole shelf clean and start over. So we'll see what happens.

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¹ 'Gemini' and 'White Gemini' both have spadices that are often initially white and then change to light yellow. The seedlings with contrasting spadices mostly either start out white and change to yellow or start yellow and change to white. (Also 'White Gemini' frequently has a little bit of pink in the spathe as it ages.) So even though 'White Gemini's spadix does initially match, I don't think it should count as a matching spadix for genetic purposes, because it otherwise behaves like a contrasting spadix, and it's a mutation of a plant with a contrasting spadix.
² For various reasons. 1) I generally don't try, because why would I want more pink? 2) although I have four plants from the NOID pink, they don't bloom very often, so I rarely have any opportunities to try. 3) seedlings from the NOID pink have a worse than average survival rate (63% for NOID pink; the overall average is 68%).
³ This is all very tough to prove, or even illustrate well, because of differences in the way the plants photograph at different times, and the ways that blooms change over time, but I think it's very likely that, say, 0083 "Carmen Adairya" is 'Gemini' x 'Pandola,' because that is totally 'Pandola's spadix:

⁴ The problem with this is that seeing scale and not seeing scale both mean the same thing: that there could be scale. So it sounds like good news, but is not. There is never any good news.
The scale situation has consumed an enormous amount of my emotional energy over the last three years, which is all the more remarkable considering that as far as I remember, scale have never directly killed any of my plants, and rarely even accumulate to the point of making the plants unsightly or sticky. What kills the plants is me deciding to throw them out because they have scale; what makes them sticky is me spraying soybean oil all over them in the course of trying to kill the scale. Scale are sort of my own little horticultural autoimmune disease.
*blink* I'm not sure what to do with this realization, now that I've had it. I mean, surely the answer is not to embrace the scale.

Pretty picture: Tolumnia Genting Orange

This one may be fairly new. Not sure. The orchid registry site where I look up ancestry information has three Tolumnia "Genting" greges:¹ Genting Angel, Genting Fairy, and Genting Rainbow. There are also several Dendrobiums named Genting something or another. But there's nothing listed for Genting Orange. Which is possibly all for the best, considering that Genting Orange is in no way orange.

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¹ "Greges" = the plural of grex, the term to describe all offspring of a particular cross. In a pinch, "greges" might also be useful if you know a lot of people named Greg and want to refer to them collectively. (Wait a minute. Wouldn't that be "Gregs," you may be asking. Ordinarily, sure. But if you feel like using "greges" anyway, what's to stop you? It's not like this is a situation that comes up a lot. If someone challenges you, just tell them, in a mildly condescending tone, "It's Latin." Referring to Latin is a good way to shut down all kinds of conversations, not just pluralization-of-Greg ones. Though every once in a while you run into someone who actually knows something about Latin, so be careful.)

Anthurium no. 0267 "Natalie Attired"

Natalie isn't amazing or anything, just another pink / pink, but at least she's sort of a pretty pink / pink.

Nine days later, the same bloom looked like this:

so I'm guessing that Natalie will be another pink that fades to white, as discussed in the post about Anthurium no. 0215 "Nathan Ofithlam."

The foliage is unremarkable,

and the plant as a whole is mildly unpleasant due to a long internodal distance,

but the real test for Natalie is going to be whether or not she can shake the light scale infestation she picked up a few months ago. I've been looking at the leaves pretty closely when I water, and rubbing off any visible scale with my fingers. Sometimes I rub the leaves in hopes of catching some non-visible scale, which so far has worked better than you'd expect it to, though it's slow, obviously. But I haven't wanted to spray with white oil for fear of causing the bloom to abort before opening, and imidacloprid granules are a non-starter because I think it would all just wash through the soil before the plant picked it up. I don't have a lot of faith that imidacloprid is helpful in my circumstances anyway.

So time will tell. If the scale goes away and stays away for a while, I'll probably up-pot Natalie and try to sell her at the consignment store; if not, I'll throw her out. Space in the basement is way too precious to waste on a scaley pink / pink, even a fairly nice scaley pink / pink.

Anthurium no. 0415 "Darby Dragons" (again)

So Darby has bloomed again. After she failed to get nearly everything right the first time -- tiny spathe, short peduncle, short-lived bloom, thrips scars everywhere, crappy foliage, boring color -- I was waiting to see whether the next one would be any better. Sometimes they do need a practice bloom before they really get going, and when it comes to the seedlings, I'm all about the second chances.

But you know what? The second bloom wasn't any better.

Most recent bloom (12 May 2015).

First bloom (3 April 2015).
It might actually be a little larger than the first, but not such that you'd notice. The thrips damage is considerably worse. It's lived twice as long as the first bloom and is still going,¹ though longevity shouldn't necessarily count in its favor if this is how it's going to look. In person, the color is unchanged; I recognize it looks different in the photos, but it's not. The newest leaf has as much thrips damage as the older ones did. The peduncle is not only basically the same length, it's bent as well, so that the new spathe faces directly downward.²

So 0415 "Darby Dragons" gets to be the first Anthurium seedling that sucks so much that I throw it out even though it's bloomed. Twice. And exceptionally early. Which is a little depressing, but I suppose it frees up space for a seedling that doesn't suck.

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¹ (As of 25 May, when I'm writing this.)
² (Which may explain why it's showing up a different color in the new photo.)

Pretty picture: Guarianthe aurantiaca

It's gotten to the point where it almost wouldn't feel like a trip to the orchid show if I didn't get to see a Guarianthe aurantiaca (formerly Cattleya). Here are the ones from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014.

I don't know what happened in 2013 that made me miss it. I mean, I assume there was probably one there.

Anthuriums no. 0215 and 0290

When I saw that 0215 "Nathan Ofithlam" was producing a bud, I wasn't expecting it to be anything terribly exciting. Generally, light pink buds turn into light pink spathes, and you cannot even imagine how sick of pink and red I am right now. Plus, the light pink spathes seem to be especially attractive to thrips, and thrips scars are especially visible on light pink spathes, so the upshot is that seeing a light pink bud is almost worse than seeing no bud at all.

But Nathan has turned out to be sort of a pleasant surprise:

Only a few thrips scars, this is as close as any seedlings have gotten to producing white spathes,¹ and it's got that odd tiny second spathe at the base of the spadix.² So it's a lot more interesting than it should have been.

It's not otherwise especially exciting; the leaves are only okay --

-- and the plant as a whole is still pretty small, considering its age (38 months in the photo).

But it'll get to stay at least until it's clear whether the color and double spathe are genetic.

Speaking of possibly-genetic oddities, one unusual bloom that I had assumed was probably only that way because I'd missed a watering or something, that of seedling 0290 "RuPaul Charles" --

-- is looking like it might actually be genetically determined. The plant was producing a second bud in April that got stuck on its own cataphyll and strangled in early May, but the bud had opened up enough by the time it died to show what the shape was going to be, and it looked the same. Much smaller, but the same shape.

I'd still like to see it produce another bloom of the same size, all the way to maturity, before I get too worked up about it, but this is encouraging.

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¹ A few others are in the neighborhood, though: 0041 "Anna Graham" has very light orange-pink spathes that get even lighter as they age, for example.
A number of the pinks don't start out very light in color, but fade with age to the point where they're essentially white by the time they die (0066 "Barbara Seville," 0083 "Carmen Adairya," 0097 "Colin Ambulance," 0126 "Erin Dirtylondry," 0202 "Mason Pepperspray," 0244 "Sara Problem," 0273 "Wes Coast," 0275 "Yvette Horizon," 0279 "Tristan Shout," 0594 "Charity Case"), as you can see in the below photos. I've tried to get pictures of the same individual bloom, when I had them.

Elapsed times between photos for each bloom:
0066 "Barbara Seville:" 42 days
0083 "Carmen Adairya:" 94 days
0097 "Colin Ambulance:" 54 days
0126 "Erin Dirtylondry:" 30 days
0202 "Mason Pepperspray: 50 days

Elapsed times:
0244 "Sara Problem:" 86 days
0273 "Wes Coast:" 132 days
0275 "Yvette Horizon:" 30 days
0279 "Tristan Shout:" 81 days
0594 "Charity Case: 89 days
One other seedling, 0235 "Rowan DeBoate," produced a very light spathe the first time out, which darkened quickly, and thereafter produced spathes that started out dark pink.

Left: first bloom, from 3 December 2013.
Right: most recent bloom, 15 April 2015.
At this point, we can't rule out the possibility that Nathan is doing what Rowan did, and his next bloom will be much more ordinary. But let's try not to be a total buzzkill realist; it's not like I have a lot of positive Anthurium-related things happening right now.
² I knew that doubled spathes and spadices were possible: the Anthurium-breeding book includes a named variety called 'Hokulea,' which consistently produces blooms with two spathes, which point in nearly-opposite directions; a variety named 'Satan,' which produces 2-4 spadices per bloom; and a variety called 'Hidden Treasure,' which usually makes no spadices at all, but occasionally produces them in the leaf axils or the typical spot. I was unable to find photos of any of the three on-line, unfortunately, but if it helps at all: 'Hokulea' is light pink / red-purple; 'Satan' is white / light yellow; 'Hidden Treasure' is a pink-orange Obake with white spadices.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Black Jack

Hey, so: I am still alive, but for various reasons haven't been able to post lately.

Or, technically, I suppose I'm able to post, in the sense that no one is physically preventing me from doing so, but I've found it difficult to post. That's probably going to continue for a while longer, as I try to process another large batch of recent photos, but I haven't forgotten about you or the blog, and semi-regular non-orchid posting will resume eventually.

Now then.

This is a very dark Phalaenopsis, but there's an even darker one coming up in February. I find myself surprisingly impressed with both. (Though while I was taking this photo, another show attendee was telling someone that they really preferred the white ones. Judging by what I see in the background while watching TV, everybody else prefers white too.¹ I think this is clearly wrong, on the grounds that all white phals look exactly the same and are boring, but nobody listens to me.)

And yes, I see that the tag has this identified as a Doritaenopsis, but neither Doritaenopsis nor Doritis even still exist, officially, so I fixed it.

Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Black Jack = Phalaenopsis Golden Peoker x Phalaenopsis Leopard Prince (Ref.)

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¹ Since about 2010 or so, white Phalaenopsis have been taking up more and more "TV houseplant" positions, to the point where it's currently like 80% white phals in the stuff we watch around here. A startlingly large chunk of the remaining 20% is Ficus lyrata, which seems to be having a sudden cultural revival for no good reason I can think of.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum Gina's Child

Paphiopedilum Gina's Child is, sort of literally, Gina's Child:

Paphiopedilum Gina's Child = Paphiopedilum Gina Short x Paphiopedilum rothschildianum (Ref.)

Though I have to think that if Gina actually loved her, she would have given her a name of her own, instead of just "Gina's Child."

Also: this is a crappy picture. I feel like it was probably a lot more winsome in person. My camera seems to do better with red-brown or otherwise dark Paphiopedilums than it does with yellow / light ones.