The Variegated Thumb

Growing plants from seed has never been my strong suit.  I’m not sure what I would say my strong suit has been, but seed has not been it.  My first encounter with seed grown aroids was more than a year ago, at the 2nd MidAmerica chapter meeting, when an IAS member, Danny, offered me a seedling Anthurium plowmanii he had grown from seed he collected at a Chicago botanic garden.  The plant was small, but seemed healthy.  For whatever reason it has stayed small and healthy looking.  Seriously, in the more than 15 months that I have had the thing, it hasn’t done diddly squat.  That is, until about a week ago.  For some reason those stagnant, tiny leaves started to get bigger…

Anthurium plowmanii seedling, finally starting to grow.

The same IAS member recently sent me three pots with seedlings he had started of Anthurium bakeri.  I put the little pots in a couple of different places and two of them got hammered by the hail a couple of weeks ago.  They have since been moved into the greenhouse, where they might get a little hotter, but will be more protected from the wind and elements.

Anthurium bakeri seedling also from Danny

I have recently had the opportunity to start a couple of different aroids from seed and had some success, so I thought I would share the pictures of my own little aroidlings (aroid seedlings).  The Anthurium pallidiflorum seeds I got from Albert and planted back in April are holding steady.  Not a lot of growth lately, but they seem to be doing okay.  Maybe they will burst forth after 15 months, like the A. plowmanii!

Anthurium pallidiflorum I started from seed - pictured on April 23.

My friend, Leland, sent me several hundred seeds from one of his hybrid meconostigma Philodendron that recently flowered and fruited.  I then sent a bunch of the seeds to 5 or 6 different people around the country that were interested in trying to grow these plants.  We all had very good germination rates.  I didn’t count the number of seeds that I carelessly scattered over sphagnum moss, but I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of them had germinated.  It certainly seems that way.

Hybrid Philodendron seedlings

The really cool thing about aroid seeds is how fast they germinate.  I mean, it was a matter of a day or two before they were popping open and showing their cotyledon leaves.  It was several more weeks before the first true leaf would arrive for me.  But even then, I had a small plant in very little time.

Hybrid Philodendron seedlings showing the first true leaves. The true leaves are the cordate (heart-shaped) ones. 2011-07-01 Correction: Hybrid Philodendron seedlings, still not showing the true leaves. Cordate leaves are Pinellia tripartita seedlings.

Leland doesn’t know the exact parentage of these seeds, but we know that Philodendron stenolobum is involved.

Another IAS friend and fellow blogger, Derek, sent me some seeds from his Pinellia tripartita, which had bloomed and fruited recently.  Unfortunately, neither of us had any luck getting these to germinate, so perhaps they weren’t viable. [2011-07-01 Update: I was wrong!  The cordate leaves above are actually the Pinellia seedlings!  So I got germination from those seeds after all, and my Philodendron seedlings are not as far progressed as I had thought.]

If my Aglaonema berries ever mature, maybe I’ll finally get to give them a try.  They have been on the plant for several months now, but I am waiting until they start to fall off the plant to know they are ripe.

My good friend, Warren, recently sent me some starts to a couple of jewel orchids.  This is the same Warren who gave me the Sarcoglottis last year.  What a great friend!

My new jewel orchids are Macodes petola and Ludisia discolor.

Macodes petola

The Macodes has bright green leaves (though mine are more yellow right now) with prominent veins that look like gold thread.  They are notoriously hard to photograph in a way that shows off their attractive veins.

Ludisia discolor

The Ludisia looks similar to another jewel orchid in the Macodes genus – Macodes lowii.  However, M. lowii has rounder leaves and more prominent branching of the veins, while Ludisia discolor has pointed leaves and bold red parallel veins.  Both of these orchids have very dark leaves, but I think Ludisia discolor is darker.  In fact, Ludisia discolor is sometimes called “The Black Jewel Orchid.”

The newly dedicated orchid terrarium

I talked with Warren about how to best grow these orchids, since they are a little different from some of the others that I grow and he suggested a terrarium.  So, I decided to do a little remodeling in my tall glass terrarium that has been more or less vacant for a while.  It now contains these two jewel orchids, my Macodes lowii and an Anthurium bakeri seedling.  I am setting this terrarium in a shady place in my greenhouse and hoping to get some good results from these orchids.

What do you think?

A friend of mine from the International Aroid Society recently offered seeds from his Anthurium pallidiflorum plant.  He sent me a package of about 10 seeds and I took them out to my potting bench to get them started.  It was a windy day and before I knew it I was searching the ground on the back patio for these seeds.  They aren’t small, but they also weren’t easy to find.  In the end, I could only find two of them.

Anthurium pallidiflorum seedlings - April 9, 2011

I started the seeds on March 21 and started seeing signs of growth just a couple of days later.  When I received the seeds they were still coated in a bit of fruit, so I first removed that by squeezing until the seed came out.  Then I sifted my potting soil to remove any large particles.  I moistened the soil and then laid the seeds on top.  Next I put the entire pot in a ziplock bag and sat it on the kitchen window sill.  Every couple of days I open the bag and mist the soil surface with my sprayer which includes a couple drops of apple cider vinegar.  This keeps destructive mold from growing in this very humid environment.

Anthurium pallidiflorum seedlings - April 23, 2011

It wasn’t long before I realized another lump of green on the surface, so I brushed the dirt aside and found that there was a third seed in the pot.  The third seed has been sprouting a little more slowly, having been partially covered by the soil.  You can see the hint of green in the picture above.

Hopefully these seedlings will continue to grow at a rapid pace, but I have noticed they are already slowing down.  When Anthurium pallidiflorum is a mature plant, it grows long, pendant leaves.  You can see a picture here.

About six months ago I saw my first pictures of Anthurium scandens.  This plant has many different features compared with all other Anthuriums I have known.  First of all, it grows as a vine, while most other Anthuriums grow as rosettes.  Also, this Anthurium is easily distinguishable by its profuse flowering (inflorescences) and the distinct white berries which form when the inflorescence is pollinated.

Anthurium scandens with single inflorescence

A couple of months ago I saw a small plant of Anthurium scandens listed for sale on eBay and I couldn’t pass it up.  I purchased it, along with another unique Aroid.  Just a week later, at the plant swap of our aroid meeting at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, there were about 10 ziplock bags with cuttings of Anthurium scandens.  On the one hand, I was kicking myself for having purchased one of these plants just weeks before when I could get one for free at our plant swap.  On the other hand, I was happy to have duplicates of this beautiful plant and knew that there was no way I could have known ahead of time that these would be available.

Anthurium scandens with two inflorescences

So now I have a couple of Anthurium scandens in my plant collection.  The cutting I brought home from the Fort Worth Botanic Garden even had a couple of inflorescences that had pollinated and formed berries (infructescence).  The smaller plant that I bought on eBay is doing well and producing a new inflorescence every couple weeks.  I have the larger plant hanging in a pot near the ceiling of my greenhouse, with my Anthurium paraguayensis, also from the FWBG meeting.  Eventually I would like to have some sort of tree branch arching across the top of my greenhouse that my Anthurium scandens can creep across.

Over Thanksgiving my family did something a little out of the norm (for us) and went on a 7 day Caribbean cruise.  It was a wonderful trip and we got to spend time with lots of my family (10 of us in all).  When our ship docked at Cozumel, Mexico, Christie and I went on a shore excursion over to the mainland to visit the Mayan ruins at Tulum, just south of Playa del Carmen.

Tulum ruins on the Caribbean coast

The ruins were beautiful and interesting.  They are set right on the coast and it’s just gorgeous.

Ruins along the Caribbean coastline

Black iguana

The grounds are covered with iguanas.  We probably saw 50 or more in the hour and a half that we were there.  One in particular, really wanted to pose for us.

Iguana posing on some warm rocks

Sea grape tree (Coccoloba uvifera)

In terms of plant life, there were a lot of Sea Grape trees (Coccoloba uvifera) all over the grounds.  Some were full-fledged trees, with regular trunks.  Others were growing more like shrubs or creeping along rock walls, having sprouted from a crack in the cliff face.

Sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) growing on cliff face near beach

Another common plant on the grounds was some species of terrestrial bird’s nest Anthuriums. Many of these Anthurium had inflorescences.  I was taking a picture of one inflorescence that had a deformed branching spadix when I noticed that a praying mantis was perched on the spadix!  I wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry and I could have gotten a little better picture.  But we were headed back to the bus and I didn’t want to get left behind!

Praying mantis on an Anthurium inflorescence

Anthurium

There were a lot of these large leaved Anthuriums with undulate leaves and raised midribs.  The only other type of Anthurium I observed was the smaller specimen below.

Smaller Anthurium

Just outside of the entrance to the ruins park was a large bed of Sansevierias.

Christie with Sansevierias

I observed some other neat plants, but didn’t know what they were.

Unknown flowering plant, possible Mandevilla

Tradescantia spathacea (thanks to mr_subjunctive) - Dense border plant with neat foliage

The plant above had really neat foliage and was growing all over the place as a border to all of the sidewalks.  The underside of the leaves is purple.

Small yellow-breasted bird

I also observed a couple of neat birds.  One was the tiny yellow-breasted bird hopping along a rock wall, pictured above.  The other almost looked like a peacock, with very colorful markings.  I had to take the picture (below) from a distance, so I didn’t get as good of a shot as I would have liked.  [2011-01-30 Update:  Tony has informed me that this is likely the Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata).]

Colorful mystery bird - Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata)

It was a great place to visit and I’m really glad we took this excursion.

Me and Christie at the Tulum Ruins