More new plants - Part 1

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This batch of plants were rescued on their way to the compacter. Basically just plants that had been in for months not selling, taking up much needed space needed for newer, nicer looking plants and generally needing more care &/or time to get them back up to prime condition. Very little actually got thrown out, most plants were adopted. Here's what I got:



Asplenium sp. - Needs some fertilizer and a small trim of some of the oldest leaves but otherwise in good shape, nice and healthy. I've had good luck with my other two Asplenium species so I imagine this should be happy for me as well.


Chlorophytum x 'Fire Flash' - This plant is actually in excellent condition. I trimmed off some developing seed pods and gave it a quick shower but more cleaning is needed to make it into an overall attractive plant again. Absolutely love the colour on the petioles.


Aechmea fasciata - Healthy plant though it is well past flowering. Three large vigorous pups tell me this should be no problem though.


Sansevieria trifasciata

This one only came to me in a roundabout way. It had been written off but they were in prime condition and basically the only reason they weren't selling was that they were $80 a pop (!). Sure they were a good full 8" sized pot, in attractive ceramic containers growing in passive hydroponics but I can't see anyone spending that much for them. Instead they were divided, repotted and planted up and priced to sell, I presume the ceramic containers will be priced separately as well and at the end of the day we'll get our money for them - I was given a division of this one which is basically my favourite Sansevieria trifasciata cultivar I've seen.

Anyone have any idea on which cultivar it actually is? It's a very light coloured almost silver/gray with darker banding. Exact colours vary from branch to branch as you can see in the picture but it is a very striking unique looking snake plant.

Moderately interesting plant event: Cryptanthus flowers

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These are likely the least exciting flowers of any Bromeliad.




The plant already had an offset when I bought it that I successfully removed and repotted that hasn't done much (including die, which I count as a plus). The mother plant is flowering and producing a new offset. Interesting, but that's about it. The markings on the leaves more than overshadow the flowers here.

Wish list addition: Dyckia spp./cvv./hybrids

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Dyckia is a genus of terrestrial Bromeliads from drier climates than many other Bromeliads (similarly they resemble Agave/Aloe/Haworthia more closely than they do most other Bromeliads).



Dyckia brevifolia - Based on that spent bloom stalk these seem to be polycarpic growers (flowers several times from one plant) unlike the majority of Bromeliads which are monocarpic. I would not want to have to remove those dead leaves though.
(Photo by Michael Wolf used under CC license from here.)

They have some pretty prominent spines as well, which they show off to great effect (Dyckia 'South Bay', first plant in the link.) While others prefer to look fantastic with uniformly beautiful colour (Dyckia 'Cherry Cola'). At least on some plants these spines are soft, meant to act as a way to diffuse heat. I'm still not sure I want to handle them too much, but maybe that's an added bonus from these spines for the plant.



Dyckia sp. looking very dramatic somewhere warmer than here.
(Photo by anniesannuals used under CC license from here.)

Looking at pictures I've found I have some significant preferences in Dyckia. I seem to like long, broad leaves with somewhat prominent spines but no larger than... half (?) the width of the leaf on a plant that forms more of an upright mound of slightly curved leaves rather than the strongly down-turned and twisted leaves of some species.

I have been going through Dyckia Brazil and saving the pages of Dyckia that have caught my eye:
Dyckia sp. - green, long broad straight leaves. Nice.
Dyckia hebdingii affinis - Silver, long narrow straight leaves with shorter spines to match the narrow leaves.
Dyckia 'Stardust' - Dyckia brevifolia (pictured above) x Dyckia fosteriana results in a a plant more attractive than either parent.
Dyckia spp. - All three species on that page.
Dyckia sp. - Unnamed form with very nice long straight leaves and black spines. Nice.
Dyckia spp. - Two groupings, all nice plants.
Dyckia 'Red Devil' - Nice.
Dyckia hebdingii - Very nice.
Dyckia sp. - Love this one.
Dyckia 'Mother Africa' - Perfect.

I don't imagine I'd pass one of these up if I saw it for sale. I don't think I've ever seen one for sale but it's on my keeping my eyes open for and buying asap list.

Vriesea flower

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Green/yellow flowers emerge from dark red/brown bracts on this Vriesea hybrid (March 2009)

This is a picture I found recently while going through my archives.

The pups are developing slowly (my fault, too dry for a while) but the mother plant's holding on very well so I've got lots of time still to do a better job looking after it.

Tillandsia cyanea

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I've been on the lookout for one of these for a while but finally picked one up. It seems to have had a rough past with some leaf damage and dried tips to the bracts but it hasn't flowered yet and has a decently sized pup growing so I'm hopeful that I can have this thing do well for me in the long run.



T. cyanea

So should I be keeping this more like my Vriesea hybrids or my other Tillandsias?

Tillandsia ionantha & NOIDs

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While I had my terrarium open for the Cryptocoryne pictures the other day I decided to shoot my small Tillandsia collection at the same time.



Tillandsia ionantha 'Mexico'



Tillandsia ionantha 'Guatemala' - poor thing. Leaves break off this one basically any time I handle it. Which is everytime I water it.



Tillandsia ionantha 'Selecta' - when I bought this one the mother plant still had the just finished but already dry and brown flowers on her. And a little pup on the side. Thought it would be fun to grow it out and have been happy to see the mother hold on for something like 2 years now. No new growth but still there. From my reading about Tillandsia seed pods it can take well over a year for the pod to ripen so this is likely why the mother plant holds on for so long (it seems like it takes a long time for these plants to do anything!).



Tillandsia NOID - had been ID'd as T. albida... but no. It had a slight resemblance when it was younger but it doesn't grow like an albida and has a smoother leaf. When I bought this the leaves had a purple cast to them but I guess my lower light has left them green.



Tillandsia NOID - I got this as a "small" pup off a larger plant but did not get an ID. There are many Tillandsias with this sort of look and I doubt I'll be able to figure out which it is until it flowers.

I really want to try and get a lot of these mounted but I don't have any suitable wood and I'm worried that once mounted I won't have anywhere bright enough to mount them. Currently they hang in wire loops off eggcrate in my terrarium. This has caused the first of my NOIDs to take on a strongly one sided growth habit.

I'll likely mount the second NOID anyway simply because it's getting too big for my tank anyway and I saw the mother plant... It's going to get bigger. Depending on what wood I find I might mount T. ionantha 'Guatemala' too so I won't keep breaking leaves off it when I soak them.

I'd also like to pick up a T. stricta and a T. cyanea (got one) at least. I've seen a few shots today as well of T. funckiana which looks fantastic as a clump (though I'm really not a fan of most other Tillansias that develop stems. T. ionantha 'Druid' or 'Peach' - both have very nice colour when flowering. 'Druid' has white flowers and a slightly less intense (this is probably very similar to the wood I'll be looking to pick up) colour while 'Peach' has the more usual blue flowers. I think I'll have to look for both.

Other than those four I'll just have to see what's available and go from there.

For care I keep mine under less light than they probably want. No water except when I soak my Aerangis biloba, at which point these get thrown in the bucket while the orchid hangs on the side. I drain them before re-hanging them so no water sits in the crown. They would probably benefit from a misting between soakings but it's a bit of a pain. I'll probably be soaking them more often this year though and already since I started actually looking after them I'm seeing much better growth and no dry tips recently. T. ionantha 'Mexico' is even sending out new roots (only one that ever has grown roots and it keeps doing it...). Since they get soaked with my Aerangis they get fertilized with it too. Will be interesting to see the effect my goal of "fertilize more" will have on these guys.

For me there's no obsession here, no strong drive to collect more, just an interest and appreciation for an unusual but fairly easy and generally small plant.