Pretty pictures: Vanda cristata

I seem to have accidentally fallen into a blogging-hiatus hole. Among other problems to be detailed below, I'm really coming to despise the plant collection:¹ they appear to be playing a game of chicken, to see which of them can have the most and largest problems without getting thrown in the trash. (Currently neck and neck for the lead: Agave desmettiana and Agave americana.)

Meanwhile, we've progressed from The Week of Sheba's Unexplained Itching to The Week of a Grandparent's Funeral to The Week of Contractors. A plan that was started roughly two years ago has finally started being executed, so we're getting some work done on the house, but our influence over which repairs, when they happen, and how they're performed is very minimal.² So there are early-morning noises, and strange people coming in and out, and at one point the plant room door was replaced.³ The whole thing's been disruptive and unpleasant. It surely says something that the high point of the last three weeks was a funeral.

As for Sheba, she's back to normal amounts of scratching and biting since she started the flea treatment, which is great. Unfortunately, the improvement was accompanied by an ear infection⁴ and fantastic, amazing dandruff,⁵ so we don't seem to be winning on that front either.

The reader may recall that I've been itching quite a bit myself lately, and that it got dramatically worse at about the same time that Sheba's latest outbreak began, so it'd be logical to think that when she's doing better, I'm also doing better. But no. My problem was apparently never the fleas.⁶ The itching is pretty terrible on its own, but it also wakes me up at night sometimes, or keeps me from getting to sleep, which amplifies all the previously-mentioned minor annoyances. And of course I have no idea what is causing it or how to make it go away; so far, all I can really do is take Benadryl, which may or may not do anything for the itching, but at least knocks me out to the point where I don't have to be consciously aware of the itching anymore.

As I write this on Monday morning, this week has not yet made its particular flavor apparent. Depression? Loss of internet service and/or electricity? Bureaucratic runarounds? Car trouble? Whooping cough? Sinkholes? Plague of frogs? Robot uprising? Time will tell. Posting is expected to stay confined to once-a-week orchid posts for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, here are some bad photographs of a not-particularly-photogenic orchid.

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¹ Not hyperbole. I know I've said things like this before and then come back around to liking plants again, but it feels like we're surely coming to the climax of . . . something. Two years is a long time to keep a hobby that's costing more in aggravation than it's giving you in pleasure, and it's getting harder to believe that stuff might get better.
² In mitigation: we're not paying for any of it, so it feels churlish to complain. (Not that that stops me, because since when have I minded being thought of as churlish?)
³ Not so terrible in and of itself, but they started when it was 39F / 4C outside, and involved a lot of people just standing around while there was a giant hole in the wall of the plant room, cold breeze blowing freely in and out, so I was understandably worried. (I spent the majority of that day in my office with the door closed trying to pretend that it wasn't happening.) It doesn't appear to have harmed any of the plants yet, but this wasn't that long ago, so they could just be slow to react.
⁴ Not diagnosed by the vet, but the smell is awfully familiar, and obviously emanating from her ear, so.
⁵ If I were a dandruff connoisseur -- and you know that one has to exist, somewhere -- this would be the best week of my life. Right up there with the first time I ever saw The Breakfast Club, probably.

^ This .gif is also a pretty good representation of how I feel when my itching gets really bad.
⁶ (which might explain why I never saw any)

Pretty picture: Cymbidium lowianum 'Pitts'

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

My last surviving grandparent died last week. This both was and was not a big deal, and consumed enough of my week that I was unable to work much on the blog, so posting will probably be light for a while until I can catch up.

Funerals remain horrible things that are not remotely consoling. I really have no idea why anyone would ever want one.¹ There was more family politics involved with this one than with the other three grandparent funerals, about which I have Feelings, but this is probably not the place to describe those. Let's just say that I like the deceased less now than I did three months ago.²

While we wait for me to get new posts together, here is another batch of transmitted light photos.

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

Cordyline fruticosa.

Pilea nummulariifolia.

Solanum lycopersicum NOID.

Dracaena reflexa 'Riki.'

Acalypha wilkesiana cv.

Polyscias scutellaria.

Ctenanthe lubbersiana. (This one is probably my favorite from the set.)

Stapelia gigantea, petal.

Begonia NOID.

Quercus sp., autumn.
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¹ I can appreciate the value of bringing the whole extended family together, because that part is actually kind of pleasant. (If you like your extended family, anyway.) I can appreciate doing something special to give everyone some kind of closure. But, well.
Let's say somebody steals your car, but leaves a note behind telling you that they stole your car for a really, really good reason, a reason they decline to provide any specifics about. And then let's say that everyone you talked to about how your car was stolen immediately reacts with oh, that's too bad, but I'm sure they had a good reason for taking it, and well, you'll probably see the car again sometime, like on the street or something, right?, and how about we drone some songs at 1/4 speed about how awesome your car thief was: whaddya say? And you're all like, but I don't really want to sing about how awesome the car thief is, 'cause the fucker, you know, stole my car, and they're like but you have to sing, everybody's going to be expecting you to sing, if you don't sing then people are going to be upset.
This is what religious funeral services feel like to me, except more so, because people are more valuable than cars.
² So in a roundabout way, I suppose the funeral was successful in making me feel less bad about the loss. Though I don't think that's how funerals are supposed to achieve that feeling.

Pretty picture: Rhynchostylis gigantea

Pretty pictures: Papaver orientale

Sort of a good news / bad news situation from the vet, though in this particular case the good and bad news are the same thing:

We had more or less ruled out fleas previously, on the grounds that I've lived with fleas before, long ago, in Texas, and I remembered that vividly enough that I figured it would be perfectly obvious. But we hadn't seen any fleas jumping around or on us. We hadn't seen any fleas on Sheba.¹ I've been itchy a lot, but the flea bites I remember from Texas were big angry red things that lasted for days, and I haven't seen anything remotely like that, so I assumed that whatever the problem was, it couldn't have been fleas.² We still don't know what's going on with me, but it kind of goes without saying that fleas seem much more plausible now.

This is bad insofar as it's not the most desirable problem to have, and now there's a lot of work to be done as far as vacuuming and washing, but on the other hand, it was easily diagnosed and should be relatively easy to solve. Sheba doesn't have some exotic form of dog leukemia, she's not allergic to mold in the walls that would cost us thousands of dollars to fix, and she's not been driven to emo self-harm because we're not walking her enough.³ Just fleas. Could have been worse. And should it happen again, we'll recognize it much earlier, and won't have to let it reach this point a second time.

Anyway. Since I sort of promised plants with the title, and since I've just made you think about fleas for a few minutes, here are some pictures of Papaver orientale:

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¹ Still haven't, actually - I went through her fur with a flea comb after we got back from the vet, and I couldn't find any fleas or eggs. I don't know if I was looking in the wrong place, if there were never that many to begin with, or if they're just really difficult to find, but I believe the vet because A) he had a flea to show us, and B) he's a vet so you gotta figure he'd know. Though I suppose he could have a whole big glass jar full of fleas sitting in a back room somewhere, that dips into when he feels like selling some medication. (Yes, but am I paranoid enough?)
² In retrospect, it seems sort of obvious that Texas would have different kinds of fleas than Iowa, given the differences in climate and possible reservoir species. A flea that lives off lizards and armadillos in a region that rarely freezes would probably have different properties than a deer/squirrel/rabbit flea that has to survive winters of -10F / -23C.
³ (Though we are still going to try to walk her more.)

Unfinished business: Billbergia, Haemanthus, Leuchtenbergia, Strelitzia

Some odds and ends today.

Billbergia nutans
This is probably more of a random plant event than unfinished business, but: the Billbergia nutans¹ is blooming again. Much smaller show than last year: then, I had seven flower spikes happen more or less at once, and so far this year it's only two. (This could be because I didn't repot this year, though it didn't actually need repotting, so if it's withholding flowers just because I didn't repot then it's being awfully petty.) That doesn't make as much difference as you'd think, photographically, because the flowers aren't terribly interesting unless you're close.

It would also probably help if I had better light for photo-taking, but you know how it is: every spot in the house that gets decent natural light also has plants piled in front of it, and consequently, it's an afternoon of work to set up a spot and take enough pictures to justify all the effort. By which point the sun has often changed positions anyway. This picture didn't turn out so bad, but you should see some of the pictures I tried to get on Saturday.


Haemanthus albiflos

I got my Haemanthus almost exactly one year ago, and in that year, the only thing it has ever done is drop leaves. I think this was mostly due to unusually long and cold shipping, and not because they're naturally big leaf-droppers, but even so, it was sort of disappointing. That only lasted for a couple months after it arrived, though; then it stabilized at three leaves. I then spent nine or ten months looking down into the center of the plant every so often to see if there was any new growth, and being disappointed. Then, a couple days ago, I looked in and there was something new. So I realize this is not the most amazing plant photo you've ever seen, but it's easily the most exciting plant photo in this post as far as I'm concerned.


Leuchtenbergia principis
For the time being, I'm still watering the Leuchtenbergias even though the information I found when writing the Leuchtenbergia profile clearly indicates that I shouldn't. I like to live on the edge like that. Both of the adult plants still have fruits on them, though the fruits don't appear to be doing much of anything. The interesting part, to me, is that they're distinctly different colors. The big plant's fruit is very slightly red-purple:

and the small plant's fruit is very slightly yellow-green:

Does this mean anything? Probably not. But it's new. Kinda.

The Leuchtenbergia seedlings I started are sort of doing okay. Probably they would be doing better if I were keeping up better with the watering. Of the 15 seedlings I potted up in individual tiny clay pots, 12 are fine, and 3 have had to be replaced. The usual cause of death, as far as I can determine, is either that I didn't water them when they needed water (small roots means a limited ability to take up water, and seedlings don't have much in the way of water reserves, so when they're out of water, they're out of water), or that I dislodged them from the soil when watering and then they got completely buried under the soil. In some cases, I suspect both things happened. I still had some seedlings that hadn't been potted up, though, so I just replaced those three seedlings and went on. There hasn't been a lot of change in the other 12 seedlings; they might be a tad bigger than they were when I potted them up, but the change is awfully subtle.

Seedling number 13 (with 10 and 7 in the background) as of 24 November 2013. The pots are 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) in diameter.

Strelitzia juncea
Speaking of seedlings.² A second Strelitzia juncea seed has germinated, and unlike the Leuchtenbergias, Strelitzias don't waste any time getting going:

Seedling no. 2.

Seedling no. 3.
Strelitzia juncea is primarily of interest because it doesn't have the big, broad leaves of the more common species like S. nicolai and S. reginae,³ so you may be wondering what's going on here. It's pretty simple: S. juncea is one of those plants with different kinds of foliage at different ages. Young plants grow leaves and resemble S. reginae, but as they get older the leaves shrink down to the point where they're basically just petioles and midribs and nothing else. Which is why I was interested. But I'm going to be seeing regular-looking leaves for quite a while first, I expect.

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¹ (Or Bizzlebergia nutans, to some.)
² (All due respect, Mr. S., but when are you ever not speaking of seedlings?)
³ Full-grown plants look like this:

Photo credit: BotBln, at Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday morning Sheba picture

Sheba's itching problem has gotten bad enough that in spots, she's bitten off all her fur and then kept going, leaving sores. You can't see them in the picture because I've deliberately chosen an angle that hides them (you might still be able to see a little bit on her back right leg), but they're there. We've tried everything we can think of here (anesthetic sprays, baths, oatmeal baths, benadryl, changing her bedding, changing her food), and none of it seems to make any difference (the benadryl might help slightly, but it's such a small amount that any perceived improvement might be wishful thinking). And still no obvious indications about what's causing it in the first place. I feel like a bad dog dad. So she's got a vet appointment on Tuesday, which is too damn far away but also the best we can do.

My primary worry is that this is going to turn out to be a mold allergy, because if we have mold, I suspect that the plants will be indirectly responsible. Not that I'm so thrilled with the plants lately anyway. It might be nice to have a reason to get rid of some of them, but I wouldn't be okay with getting rid of all of them.

Not sure what the best-case scenario would be. Maybe a laundry detergent sensitivity? I guess the best explanation would be that she was biting holes in herself because she's just that hungry. I'd feel way worse, but it'd be even easier to fix than the laundry detergent thing. I doubt that's our problem, though.

Pretty picture: Phragmipedium Haley Decker

Hey, finally another decent orchid photo. Seems like it's been forever. I think the last one I was happy with was also a Phragmipedium, so the clear lesson here is that I should take more photos of phrags. (I was kidding when I wrote that, but when I go back and look at the Phragmipedium tag, they actually do seem to wind up being one of my better orchid-photo subjects.)

Phragmipedium Haley Decker = Phragmipedium kovachii x Phragmipedium Saint Ouen