Anthurium no. 0206 "Marcia Dimes"

0206 "Marcia Dimes" is something of a chameleon: if I'm comparing her to the pink spathes (like 0239 "Russ Teanale"), she's purplish-pink, but compared to the purplish-pink spathes (like 0231 "Rhea Listick"), she's pink. I mean, this isn't the most amazing thing in the world or anything, but it's unexpected: Russ is the only pink / yellow combination I've gotten,¹ but there are a whole mess of purple-pink / yellow and purple-pink / white blooms, and they're all very close in color.² I'm sort of surprised that it's possible to wind up with a color that's in between pink and purple-pink.

In any case. It's possible that this will be one of those cases where the first bloom is a different color from the later ones, too. Whatever color Marcia lands on, it'll be nice enough, I'm sure -- I am particularly fond of both the pink / yellow and purple-pink / yellows, so I don't think Marcia could actually get this wrong.

The leaves have two noteworthy qualities. The first is that they have an unusual texture. I spent a while trying to come up with a good description and couldn't, so I'll just leave it at, Marcia's leaves are less glossy, and the veins less prominent, so there's sort of an impression of smoothness happening.

This actually isn't something I like particularly -- I prefer glossier leaves, and more complicated-looking venation³ -- and it's not unique at all, but it's particularly noticeable with Marcia.

The other notable feature is that the thrips have mostly left the foliage alone. (The spathe too, as far as that goes.) This by itself would mean Marcia's a keeper, but then to have a nice bloom, in a pleasant / interesting color, on top of that? Yowza.

The plant is also relatively compact so far: long internodes have dampened my enthusiasm about a lot of the other seedlings. Among other things, plants with long internodes are much, much harder to water, because the plants get tangled in one another.

So there you have it. Not the best seedling ever,⁴ and not even my favorite from the recent batch of first-time blooms,⁵ but still in the top 25% or so of the blooms to date.

Next post: Anthurium no. 0510 "Victoria 'Porkchop' Parker," who is interesting even though she hasn't bloomed yet.

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¹ Unless you count 0040 "Ivy Winters." I'm not sure I do -- Ivy was sometimes a little too orange to call "pink." (The past tense is because Ivy is now living in Texas, not because she's dead. In case you were worried.)
²

Top row, L-R: 0035 "Alyssa Edwards," 0234 "Ross Koz," 0085 "Carson Trucks"
Bottom row, L-R: 0231 "Rhea Listick," 0259 "Tasha Salad"
³ More like these:

0005 "Chad Michaels" (L) and 0076 "Bob Humbug" (R)
Chad has the sort of color I like, plus an interesting shape and a high gloss; Bob I like mostly because the leaves show all the veins (which may be more obvious if you see the full size version of the photo) and are a bit thicker and stiffer, giving it a sort of leathery, reptilian texture. They both look like they'd be interesting to touch. Marcia, on the other hand, gives the impression that touching her leaves would be sort of like touching the back of a computer monitor, or some other matte plastic thing. Which is not that far off, actually.
⁴ The very short list of seedlings in the running for "best seedling ever:" 0231 "Rhea Listick," 0334 "Jean Poole," 0330 "Faye Quinette," 0120 "Eliza Boutisecksis," 0276 "Zach Religious." If the house were on fire and I could save one and only one of the seedlings, it'd probably be one of those five. But please don't set my house on fire so we can find out for sure, okay?
⁵ (That would be 0360 "Heidi Gosique," whom you will get to meet soon.)

Pretty picture: Cattleya Purple Cascade 'Fragrance Princess'

I didn't actually notice any fragrance, despite the name, but then I never do, and even if I did smell something there would be no way to track it to its source, what with all the people and air currents and plants crammed cheek to jowl.

We've seen Purple Cascade before (2013), though possibly not this particular clone of it.

The picture's a lot better this time around, at least partly because I was able to get a lot closer to the plant. I did have to step over the fencing around the display in order to get the photo, but nobody seemed to object, or even to notice.

Cattleya Purple Cascade = Cattleya Interglossa x Cattleya Tokyo Magic (Ref.)

Anthurium 'Midori,' and nos. 0064, 0592

I sorta thought by this point that I would be up to writing new posts every other day, but every time I get close to being caught up, some new unusual thing pops up and I have to burn an afternoon on going to the dentist, buying potting soil, taking plants to the consignment store, mailing plants out, or catching up on the watering I didn't do the previous day because I was too exhausted to finish. Stuff like that. Consequently, I don't have time for the blog very often, and when I do, I usually don't have the photos ready for whatever post I want to write. So basically it's been six weeks of working as hard as I can and never quite getting caught up on anything, and I'm tired.

Quite a few Anthuriums have bloomed for the first time since I last blogged about 0112 "Dottie A. Rebel" way back on June 7,¹ and there have been new first-time buds on many more, though some of those subsequently failed to develop.² As usual, some of the new blooms are crap, most are boring, and a couple are very nice, but I won't tell you which are which because I'm still hoping to get actual posts written about all of those.

This post is not about any of those, though. This post is about the recent notable deaths.

[reader scrolls back up to the title, reads, scrolls back down]

Yeah, that's right. 'Midori' is gone, after about eleven months. I don't know what happened there, exactly: it was a watering problem of some kind, possibly exacerbated by excessively hot or cold temperatures, but by the time I realized that there was a problem, it was too late to determine what had caused it or do anything to bring the plant back. This is the first time I've completely lost a named variety of Anthurium in such a long time I don't even know how long it's been. (The NOID purple is kind of still on the ropes, but the original plant, after being cut back, has a single sprout, and I also rooted the cuttings I took off. One set of cuttings was potted up in soil and is living in the basement; the other is still in water and lives in the plant room. It's been a long time since I got a bloom, and will probably be a lot longer, but the NOID purple is not yet completely gone.)

'Midori' wasn't the best at producing seedlings, either, it turns out. I've potted up nine so far, of which four are still alive,³ and there are another 16 seeds in the cupcake containers in the basement, which may or may not ever get big enough to transplant, and may or may not survive transplanting. It sure feels like 'Midori' seeds germinate and grow a lot more slowly than seeds from my other plants, though I suppose I may just be impatient.

It turned out that I don't actually need 'Midori,' because at least one of my existing parent plants (probably the NOID red) already has genes for green blooms, but it was weird and I liked it and it makes me sad that it died.

The other two notable recent deaths ⁴ are 0064 "Augusta Wynndt" and 0592 "Tess LeCoil." Tess you'll probably remember from February, when I talked about her . . . unusual growth.

Photo: 22 January 2015.
It got bigger after that:

Photo: 11 March 2015.
For a while, the growth (one doesn't want to say tumor, though possibly it was) looked like it was even thinking of building some leaves -- you can see one in the above picture. I kept thinking, every time I watered it, oh, I should probably throw Tess away, there's no way that can be healthy, and if it's due to a virus or something I don't want it to spread to the other plants, but then I wouldn't throw it away because of the paperwork involved.⁵ Fortunately, it solved the problem for me, by spontaneously killing off that whole section:

Photo: 27 June 2015.
Though 1) by the time that happened, I'd thought maybe I should . . . enough times that I still felt sort of obligated to throw it out, and 2) it looked like possibly it was gearing up to do the same thing all over again -- that stumpy little green thing to the right in the picture seemed awfully familiar.

0064 "Augusta Wynndt" never built up her bizarre growth to the size Tess did, but only because I wouldn't let her. For a solid three years or so, Augusta grew normally, but at some point during this last winter (I think?), the growing tip started to do whatever Tess had been doing. So I cut it off, thinking that the plant might make new growing tips, which would have a normal shape to them, but apparently things don't work that way. (In particular, check out the larger lump on the left center, which may or may not be doing what Tess did but in any case is clearly not developing normally.) So Augusta and Tess were thrown away on June 23, and that is that.

So there you have it. The next Anthurium post will be happier. Or at least less morbid. Probably both.

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¹ New first-time completed blooms:
0206 "Marcia Dimes"
0255 "Steph N. Wolfe"
0281 "Laganja Estranja"
0288 "Cookie Buffet"
0335 "Donna Fanuday"
0346 "Lois Carmen DiNominatre"
0351 "Pat McCooter"
0360 "Heidi Gosique"
0373 "Shangela Laquifa Wadley"
0564 "Shannel"
0597 "Raven"
² New first-time buds since 13 April 2015, with current bud colors (not necessarily the color of the completed blooms):
0147 "Denise O. Deanefew" (in progress, light pink)
0152 "Jay Love" (aborted)
0212 "Rogue" (in progress, pink-red)
0250 "Sheila Blige" (aborted)
0277 "Zach Treplica" (in progress, white)
0328 "Polly Esther Blend" (in progress, light orange-pink)
0338 "Anne Fibian" (in progress, dark red)
0361 "Willam Belli" (aborted)
0365 "Murray Hill" (in progress, red)
0371 "Deb Autry" (in progress, red)
0386 "Bjorn Innabarn" (in progress, purple)
0416 "Holy McGrail" (in progress, and "Holy" is not a typo for "Holly" -- light pink)
0467 "Regina Fong" (in progress, light orange-pink)
0487 "Polyfilla" (aborted, pink)
0488 "Regina the Gentlelady" (aborted, pink)
0558 "Amber Waves" (in progress, pink)
0561 "Belinda Chinashop" (in progress, red-pink)
0562 "Alex U. Good" (aborted, red)
0575 "D'Arcy Drollinger" (in progress, pink)
0586 "Vera Special" (in progress, red)
0595 "Josie P. Katt" (in progress, light pink)
0596 "Alisa Summers" (in progress, light pink)
³ Seedlings of 'Midori': (* indicates a seedling which is still alive)
1033 "Phoenix"
1092 "Mia Amor"
*1093 "Luna Stones"
*1094 "Ella Vawaydego"
1101 "India Vent"
1102 "Eden Fertu"
*1103 "Valeria T."
*1104 "Angel F. DeMornay"
1105 "Amy Vodkahaus"
The survivors are all still very, very young, and probably not all of them will survive long enough to bloom, but I'm really pulling for 1104 "Angel F. DeMornay," because she has the best name.
⁴ There are so many non-notable deaths -- 83 since May 1 -- that it's a huge pain in the ass to list them all. So I'm not gonna. And I think we can all be happy about that.
⁵ At this point, every time an Anthurium seedling dies, I have to update six different spreadsheets, and my Blogger profile, and pull a page out of the hand-written notebooks I keep for the Anthuriums. Which is my own fault, of course, for keeping so many different documents in the first place. They all have their purposes, though. I mean, I'm not sure there's any way to condense their information into a single spreadsheet and have it all still be accessible and useful.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum philippinense var. laevigatum

"Philippinense" is a difficult word to spell correctly. One L and two P's, as opposed to the more common "Phillip," with two L's and one P. Though I suppose if you spend a lot of time thinking or writing about the Philippines, you probably get used to it. (Though, then, do you start having trouble spelling "Phillip?")

I knew Phragmipediums could have ringlety petals (or are they sepals?), but I feel like I didn't know until now that Paphiopedilums could as well.

We haven't seen Paph. philippinense var. laevigatum, as such, on the blog before, but we've seen a named clone:

Paphiopedilum philippinense var. laevigatum 'Twin States' (2011 show)

one non-laevigatum variety:

Paphiopedilum roebelenii (more correctly, Paph. philippinense var. roebelenii) (2012 show)

and three of its hybrids:

Paphiopedilum Berenice (2012 show)
Paphiopedilum Judge Phillip (2012 show)
Paphiopedilum St. Swithin (2011 show; St. Swithin remains one of my all-time favorite orchids)

So I think it's safe to say we've got most of the Paphiopedilum philippinense bases covered.

Schlumbergera time again

After the first round of selling Schlumbergera seedling cuttings in May, I took another batch of cuttings, and they're ready to go now. So if you passed up that opportunity to buy some, here's a second chance. Prices are the same as the first round: one plant for $7, two plants for $11. If you want more than two, I'm allowing that this time around, but I strongly prefer it if you select an even number of plants to purchase.¹ They'll be shipped as boxes containing two plants each, so four would be $22, six would be $33, etc. Those prices include shipping.

The previous disclaimers apply:
• they're mostly three cuttings, stuck in a square pot 2 inches on a side.
• U.S. only.
• you have to let me know which ones you're interested in well before buying them, because quantities are limited and there will probably be conflicts. E-mailing gets you dibs on a given seedling, but neither of us is obligated to do anything until money has been exchanged.
• Though I have tried my best, I cannot guarantee that bloom color, frequency, etc. will be the same for you in your home as they are for me in mine. Mutations happen, cuttings get mixed up, plants grow differently in different environments, etc.
• Rooted plants only; I won't send unrooted cuttings.²
• I still haven't seen scale or thrips on any of the Schlumbergeras in the house, ever, and consequently think that they're unlikely to transmit bug infestations to your other plants, but it is still hypothetically possible and you should be prepared to take appropriate precautions, like quarantining them, spraying them with a pesticide, or washing them in soapy water, on arrival.

A couple seedlings that weren't available in April/May are available now, most notably 055B "Fort Venus" and 082A "Strawberry Madeleine." Here's the full list as of 14 July 2015:

008B "Candor"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / light pink; dark orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Might be the same plant as 008A "Frightened Dog," just producing more shapely blooms. I haven't seen a second bloom from "Frightened Dog," and "Frightened Dog" happened before I started marking the branches to indicate different seedlings.

010A "Semantic Satiation"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink; ages to red-orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2

012A "Sofa Fort"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 3 waiting on new growth from one or two cuttings
Comments: One of my personal favorites; the orange and pink harmonize better on this one than they do on some of the other orange / pinks.

019A "Belevenissen"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options.

022A "Sad Tomato"
Colors (petals / tube): red-orange / white; ages to red-orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: The color doesn't do much for me personally, but it blooms well, the blooms last a normal amount of time, and the color is strong, so I think it's objectively a good seedling, just one I'm not especially into.

023A "Stoked"
Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 2 ready now, 3 waiting on new growth from a cutting
Comments: Another of my personal favorites, though sometimes the petals . . . break off? I'm not sure what's going on; I just know that a few times after taking photos, I then notice pieces of petals on the floor or wherever, and they seem to be mainly from "Stoked." Either I'm being unusually rough with it, or it's unusually brittle.

024A "Safety Vest"
Colors: orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Very similar to 025 "Clownfish." Infrequent blooms, but was one of the latest to bloom during the spring, so it's possible that it's less strict about temperature and day-length requirements than many of the others. 023A "Stoked" is a better version of the same thing, if one is available.

024B "Bryce Canyon"
Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white; yellow-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: crazy fast
Quantity Available: 1 ready now, 1 waiting on new growth from some cuttings
Comments: Does drop a lot of buds, but it starts out with so many that it still winds up producing more flowers than any of the others. Vigorous. Odd color which may or may not be to your personal taste.

025A "Clownfish"
Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Earliest to bloom, and still seems to be the least picky about getting absolute darkness at night, but for all that, it doesn't produce very many flowers. Reason is unknown. 023A "Stoked" looks a lot the same but blooms much better.

026A "Brick Wall"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; pink-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 3 ready now; 2 waiting on new growth from one or more cuttings
Comments: Probably my overall favorite orange from the group; it doesn't come across in the photos at all, but there's a weird softness to the color that I find very appealing, and the flowers practically glow at certain times of day. I mean, they all do this to some degree or another (golden hour + orange bloom = glowy), but "Brick Wall" regularly stops me in my tracks. I was surprised there wasn't more interest in this one in April/May.

028A "Phil Collen"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / very light pink; ages to orange-red / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 2 waiting on new growth from one cutting

028B "Neon Like"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: Similar to, and a reasonably good substitute for, 012A "Sofa Fort," though "Sofa Fort" is a slightly yellower shade of orange.

030A "Diwali"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: The odd not-fully-opened thing has been consistent in all blooms so far, but it doesn't bloom often, so I'm not sure that's necessarily genetic. Other seedlings have done similar things from time to time, so it's possible "Diwali" was just having trouble getting its shit together. We'll find out this fall, I guess. As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options.

031A "Baby Carrots"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; ages to orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 claimed, 1 available
Comments: As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options. The parent plant bloomed a little later into the spring than a lot of the other seedlings.

054A "Helpful Gesture"
Colors: red / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1 claimed, 1 available, 2 waiting on new growth from one cutting
Comments: Not a heavy bloomer at all for me so far, but when the blooms appear, they're pretty nice. Or at least they're not orange.

055B "Fort Venus"
Colors: orange-red / pink; ages to red / magenta
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 3
Comments: One of the three available pots only has one cutting in it, but that cutting has a developing fruit on it, which you could use to start your own seedlings if you really wanted to. (No idea who the pollen parent was, and I can't guarantee that any resulting seedlings would be worth growing. But how will you know unless you try?) "Fort Venus" is as close as any of the seedlings have been to the parent, 'Caribbean Dancer,' and the similarity is especially strong on older flowers.

057A "Pyrotechnic"
Colors (petals / tube): pink-orange / white; ages to orange-pink / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Another one I really like, probably based on the color being pinker than most of the oranges. Fairly substantial color change from orange to orange-pink as the blooms age.

061A "Leather Fairy"
Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 1 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Looks an awful lot like the NOID peach that I think was the pollen parent, and I think has only produced one flower to date, but the cuttings rooted like champs so at least the plant is fairly vigorous? I mean, this is definitely the one to get if you're big into stems. I'm not going to promise flowers.

073A "Laurie Anderson"
Colors: orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Pretty ordinary orange / pink. It started late and didn't have a very long bloom season, so I didn't really get to know it as well as some of the others.

078A "Art Party"
Colors (petals / tube): red / pink
Bloom Frequency: very slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: The original plant has only produced one flower so far. 054A "Helpful Gesture" isn't a heavy bloomer either, but it's probably a slightly better plant, with a very similar color. The original seedling has a less upright growth habit than a lot of the others, though the cuttings so far have been pretty vertical.

082A "Strawberry Madeleine"
Colors: orange-red / white; ages to red-magenta / white
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 1 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Probably the most impressive of the later seedlings, in that it produced a lot of blooms all at once, in April, and then the blooms change colors in an interesting way as they age, too.

088A "Cyborg Unicorn"
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 2 ready now; 2 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Although the flower in the top two images looks different from the flower in the bottom two, I'm pretty sure both blooms are from the same seedling. 'Caribbean Dancer' is prone to the occasional streaky bloom too, and they're not produced consistently on the same branch or anything as far as I can tell, so I think it's just a Schlumbergera thing.) "Cyborg Unicorn" is one of the stronger, more floriferous orange/pinks, though it's a darker, more magenta pink than, say, "Sofa Fort" or "Neon Like," which have lighter, more delicate colors.

099A "Dessert Room"
Colors: orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium? Can't actually remember. . . .
Quantity Available: 1

111A "Morning Sun"
Colors: orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: I can't remember if this was actually a crappy seedling or if it just happened to photograph badly.


And that's all there is for this round. There won't be a third Schlumbergera-selling post like this this year, because there's nowhere for me to get new cuttings from, so when these are gone, they're gone until next spring. If you're interested in any of these, send me an e-mail and we'll get the payment, mailing addresses, and so forth straightened out. I'm hoping to mail plants out on or before early August, so they can have a couple months to acclimate to their new homes before it's time to produce buds.

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¹ Because I have boxes that will fit two plants more or less exactly. If you really, really want a large odd number, something can probably be worked out, but it simplifies things a lot for me if you stick to even numbers.
² The main reason being that the seedlings have had so many cuttings taken from them already that they need time to recover before I can take more.

Pretty picture: Trichosalpinx orbicularis

Well. "Pretty" picture is stretching the truth a bit.

I like the leaves, though.

Random plant event: Ctenanthe burle-marxii

For a plant in the Marantaceae, Ctenanthe burle-marxii has been pretty easy to grow, and I've managed to propagate it a number of times (by divisions), and it's been relatively unbothered by pests. Apparently the Ctenanthes are just like that -- this post, which mainly talks about growing them outdoors, says they're pretty easy-going.

Also, if you're wondering: the "c" is silent. Dave's Garden says it's pronounced "tee-NANTH-ee;" I've been pronouncing it "ten-ANTH-ee." Potato, pohtato, maybe.

No Ctenanthes are commonly-sold around here; besides C. burle-marxii, the only one I've ever seen for sale was C. lubbersiana, and it's never at a size or price I could afford to get.¹ C. burle-marxii itself was never actually for sale at the ex-job while I was there; my recollection is that shortly after I got Nina, I noticed a tiny, two- or three-leaved plant growing out of the soil on the greenhouse floor, and took it home for her terrarium, which it eventually took over, though I don't have any great photos of how much it took over. I was assuming when I brought it home that it was a Calathea, and then I thought Stromanthe for quite a while; it took a long time to figure out that it was a Ctenanthe.

In any case. The point being that it hasn't been a particularly difficult plant for me, but it's also never gotten me terribly excited, either -- it does its thing, and gets bigger, and it's handsome, and I like it, but it's never done anything new. Until now.

Which, this isn't especially pretty either, but it's the first time I've seen one bloom, so it's, like, exciting on a technicality, or something. And it's blooming a lot. This photo only shows three inflorescences, but that's because I couldn't fit the whole plant in the photo and still have the background. Really it's at least six:

Anyway.

I should maybe mention at this point that although I'm not quite back yet, I'm expecting to slowly ramp back up to a more frequent posting schedule in the next few weeks. (I hope you want to see some pink Anthuriums!) At some point relatively soon, we'll see round 2 of the Schlumbergera seedlings for sale as well, if there's anyone interested in those.

-

¹ I've seen them at Lowe's before, but in like 10-inch pots, which is too big. The ex-job had a couple once, also in huge pots, and for like $40, and I asked if they'd sell me a cutting cheap and they said yes but then it never actually happened for some reason. Which is probably just as well, 'cause it's not like I need any more plants that get huge.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Balloon

So at the show this year there were two specimens of I-Hsin Balloon, and just like last year, I loved them both. Something about this particular hybrid really does it for me.

I was also pleased to note that the name on both was "Balloon," though I sort of knew before I even got to the show that that was likely how the tags would read.¹ A couple days prior to the show, I got this comment on the 2014 post from "Marcia:"

I own this plant and I registered it exactly as Hausermann's label stated...it will be in the 2015 show at Wallace's...sure like to know who you are.

Which I'm not really that interested in whose fault it is that it was tagged incorrectly, since it's easy enough to see how it could have gotten changed. It's easy to drop (or add) a double letter. A smudge or piece of dirt could turn a lowercase "n" into a lowercase "r" easily enough, and while in most contexts "ballor" would be a nonsense word, it's not like "I-Hsin" is everyday English, either.

So anyway. I would like it if sellers, in particular, would treat plant names as important enough to double-check. I feel like the ID is part of the product, and if you can't be bothered to proofread your tags before you send plants out, that says something about what else you might be skipping over on your way to make a buck.² I can't say that I've ever declined to buy something I wanted solely because of mistagging, but it does get me to look more closely at a plant, and often if the ID is wrong, there's something else wrong with the plant too.

It would be nice, also, if exhibitors in orchid shows would also double-check names, since orchid shows are a big place where the general public gets exposed to orchids, and if they see a plant they like and want one just like it, it's helpful to be able to search for it by its actual name. Plus, you would think that if awards are being given out, it'd be extra important to make sure that you have the names right. If you can get a blue ribbon for growing the biggest, most colorful, most beautiful Neostylis anyone's ever seen, but it's actually a Laeliocattleya, clearly something's gone wrong with the show.³ But Marcia says that was how the tag had it, and I don't doubt her, so whatever. It'd be nice, but it's not that big of a deal.

In any case. I left Marcia a comment back at last year's post, but she didn't respond, so we still haven't met. We could have -- at the show, I knew who she was,⁴ and I could have gone up and introduced myself -- but 1) I wasn't feeling especially social that day to begin with, no reason, just sometimes I wake up not wanting to deal with people and that was one of those days,⁵ 2) call me paranoid, but "sure like to know who you are" sounds a little ominous if you read it the right way,⁶ and 3) when I first saw her, she had kind of a sour expression on her face, which is understandable in that by this point the show had been going on for several hours already, and I imagine it's kind of exhausting to be part of an orchid show even if you're an extrovert and you like being in orchid shows. I mean, I assume she's probably a perfectly nice person and she would almost certainly not have gotten me banned for life from the orchid show or framed me for murder or anything like that. But given 1) and 2), I had pretty much decided that I wasn't going to say hi anyway, so it didn't take much of a push to make that decision final. Next year, maybe.

Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Balloon = Phalaenopsis Sogo Lisa x Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Gem (Ref.)

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¹ Still with the "Dtps.," though, which is no longer accurate. Though given that botanical genus names have been in upheaval for several years now, and occasionally revert to their original designations, I can understand not leaping to correct it to "Phal." immediately.
² Though even there, things will happen that are out of your control. I've complained a number of times about the Exotic Angel brand (started by Hermann Engelmann Greenhouses -- apparently in order to sell plants you have to have a double-N in your name somewhere, which is why I'm thinking about changing my name to Mr. Subjunnctive -- but Engelmann was purchased last year by Costa Farms) being terrible at getting IDs correct, and I think mostly that's because Engelmann didn't give a shit, but, it's also the case that customers will switch tags around, with or without malicious intent, or that a tray of plants will get knocked over and dumped out on the floor on the day when the person who knows what everything isn't scheduled to work.
It remains to be seen whether Costa will do a better job with the tagging than Engelmann did, though I am not optimistic, considering my previous interactions with them: see the Strelitzia incident or the more recent Anthurium incident.
³ Not that anyone would make that particular error: I'm using a deliberately ridiculous example. But you see the sort of thing I mean.
⁴ (Name tag, plus looking for Marcias on the Illowa Orchid Society's web page to confirm a surname)
⁵ Those days are becoming more frequent as I get older, a troubling trend when extrapolated into my 80s. I blame Facebook.
Not because Facebook necessarily has anything to do with it; I'm just trying out this thing where when I don't like something, I hold Facebook responsible for it. You'd be surprised how often Facebook-blaming makes sense.
Though now that I think about it, by the time I'm in my 80s, I will likely be dead, living in a radioactive hellscape searching through debris for small rodents to eat, or in a robot-staffed nursing home, and in all of those situations, being antisocial is unlikely to be my worst problem.
⁶ "Dr. ChaosDoom, stroking the Siamese cat in his lap and smirking at the video monitor, said 'I'd sure like to know who you are' to Captain HeroGuy. Outside, thunder crashed."
This reading is maybe even more understandable if you imagine that Captain HeroGuy had been complaining, a lot, and in public, about Dr. ChaosDoom's 2011 and 2012 world-domination plans being really poorly-spelled and factually inaccurate.