Plant Find: My Florida plant acquisitions

While in Florida I got a LOT of plants.  Most of these were either aroids or orchids.  First, let me show you the aroids I got.

Anthurium ottonis

Anthurium ottonis

This little Anthurium attracted me with its lanceolate leaves.  It is a very healthy little plant and I look forward to seeing this grow into a mature specimen.

Anthurium crystallinum

Anthurium crystallinum

This is one of the velvety Anthuriums with prominent iridescent veins.  Again, this is just a small plant, but if it likes my growing conditions then it will become a beautiful large plant within a year or two.

Aglaonema modestum variegated

Aglaonema modestum variegated

This is actually the only Aglaonema I purchased at the show.  There were a couple others that I eyed, but ultimately I ran out of packing room (and money), so I stopped with this one.  It is one of the few variegated Aglaonemas in cultivation.  Most Aglaonemas have interesting leaf patterns, with various shades of green and some silvers, but few have white patches like this one.

Alocasia 'Maharani'

Alocasia 'Maharani'

This is one I had never seen before.  It is a beautiful Alocasia with dark leaves that have a rough texture and a rigidity unlike any of my other plants.  I'm really hoping this isn't a high maintenance plant, but it might be.  For now it seems pretty happy, sitting in a very shady spot on the floor of my greenhouse.

Dieffenbachia oerstedii - no picture


I hadn't heard of this Dieffenbachia before, but it was a species and it was from Dr. Croat, so how could I pass it up!?!  Dieffenbachias are a really neat genus of aroids that I enjoy, though I don't have too many in my collection.  This particular species develops a strong white midrib at maturity, which is striking in contrast to the otherwise dark green leaves.

Encyclia plicata (in mesh basket) and Philodendron gloriosum

Philodendron gloriosum

Christie and I both fell in love with this Philodendron and decided to buy it out of our general budget, rather than my plant allowance.  Since then it has gone by the moniker of "family plant."

The IAS show and sale is set up with the show plants in the middle of the room.  Along one wall are vendors with plants for sale and along another wall are plants for sale that will benefit the IAS.  Dr. Croat brought a bunch of items from the Missouri Botanical Garden for sale at the IAS show.  These plants are either species that were wild collected or propagated from his wild collections.

Pinellia pinnatipartita (IAS show)

The one exception, I believe, was a big trash bag full of Pinellia pinnatipartitas, which I think Dr. Croat had yanked out of his yard to thin out his own crop.  There was a sign on the bag, boldly announcing "Guaranteed success!"  As if that weren't enticing enough, they were marked $1.  So, naturally, I got one.  Taylor picked through the bag for me and found a really nice, large tuber and it was one that had just fruited, so I have a bunch of seeds in addition to the healthy tuber.

tubers of Pinellia ternata (IAS show) - no picture

Pinellias are one of the aroid genera with several varieties hardy in my zone.  For now, I have potted these tubers of Pinellia ternata and put them in the greenhouse.  However, I plan to plant them outdoors next spring and then let them stay outside for good.  I want to develop a little garden of hardy aroids.

Rhaphidophora hayi

Rhaphidophora hayi (IAS auction)

This is really my first shingling aroid.  I made up a tentative list of plants I would like to purchase at the IAS show before I left.  Not really knowing what I would find, it was just a wishlist of things I was hoping to find.  One of the items was "a shingling aroid."  There were some for sale, but I was overlooking them for other plants.  Then there was one available at the auction and I ended up getting an excellent deal on this little plant, donated by Palm Hammock.  It is now propped against the back wall of the greenhouse, where I am hoping it will start to shingle up on the brick wall of the house.

Now, here are the plants I purchased, which are not aroids.

Encyclia plicata blooms

Encyclia plicata (above) and Encyclia tampensis (below) - both from Ruben in Orchids

As mentioned in a previous post, I purchased two Encyclias at Ruben in Orchids.  One of them (Encyclia plicata) had a long bloom spike with these really neat flowers (above) and was growing in a mesh basket.  The other (below) was on my wishlist of plants to purchase in Florida.  It is the "Florida Butterfly Orchid" (Encyclia tampensis) and the plant that I kept seeing all over my everglades boardwalk.  It is a mature, mounted plant and had already finished blooming, with several dead bloom spikes on it when I purchased it.  Next year I hope to have as many spikes as it had this last summer.

Encyclia tampensis

Dendrobium nobile

Dendrobium nobile (from R.F. Orchids)

I purchased two cheap orchids at R.F. Orchids - one a species Dendrobium nobile (above) and the other a hybrid Vanda. The Dendrobium was a collection of keikis that had been cut off mature plants and bundled together for $8.   The Vanda is young now, but someday it should look like a mixture of the parents, which are pictured below.

Vanda hybrid

Vanda hybrid (V. Crownfox Black Forest x V. Judie McKemie) (from R.F. Orchids)

Vanda hybrid parents

A nice Dendrobium in bloom

Dendrobium in bloom (from The Banyan Garden in the Keys)

There are still a couple of "trip reports" I plan to write in the coming weeks about special planty places I visited while in Florida.  One of those places is called The Banyan Garden, which is located on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.  I bought this cheap and beautiful blooming Dendrobium there.

My favorite cheap Phalaenopsis

Phalaenopsis in bloom (from Redlands roadside stand)

I already told you about my steals in south Miami - orchid country.  Here are their pictures, again.

Harlequin Phalaenopsis

Phalaenopsis (harlequin) in bloom (from Redlands roadside stand)

Harlequin Phalaenopsis are the "in thing" right now.  The name refers to the spotting pattern on the flower petals.  I'm told this is a generic term applied to dog and horse breeds, as well.

Silver Buttonwood cuttings.  I really hope these are rooting, but I just don't know.

Silver Buttonwoods

There were Silver Buttonwoods (Conocarpus erectus var. sericeus) everywhere in Florida.  Most were trees, but quite a few were bushes or well-manicured hedges.  We stopped to admire this beautiful tree at our very first lunch stop in Miami - on our way to the Everglades.  On the last day of our trip, I took some cuttings from a couple trees in the Keys.  The cuttings are now in a jar of moist vermiculite, hopefully rooting.  I put some other cuttings directly in water and they quickly wilted.  Since the cuttings in vermiculite still look fresh and happy I have high hopes that good things are happening.  We'll see in a couple of months.

Three little Tillandsias

Tillandsias

Tillandias grow everywhere in southern Florida.  I have never grown any myself, but I am hoping I will have some luck with these.

Zamia furfuraceae "hedge" with seedlings at the base

Zamia furfuraceae seedlings (from Key West, Florida)

Cycads are very common in southern Florida.  In many places they are grown so thick that they can be cut into hedges.  The above picture is from our hotel in Key West, where they were being trimmed into rectangular hedges.  These plants were "coning" like crazy and the seedlings were thick at their base.

Yes, I really did pack all of this in suitcases to bring home!

Trip Report: West Martello Tower

Strangler fig covering a section of wall at the Martello Tower

On the island of Key West, not far from the marker for the "southern most point in the continental US" is the West Martello Tower and gardens, which is maintained by the Key West Garden Club.  This beautiful garden is the site of a never-completed fort, which is really just a great setting, with brick walls of various heights and wandering paths through what is not a lush tropical garden.

Christie enjoying the beautiful Martello Tower gardens

I have to admit, I enjoyed visiting here much more as it is today than I would have if it had been completed and now stood as a military historical site.

Bromeliads planted around a collapsed portion of wall

The grounds are filled with nice compositions, including the nice spot above where some chunk of brick wall has collapsed and lays half buried, book-ended with a spreading bromeliad.

Gorgeous Plumeria rubra blooms

Interesting Plumeria seed pods

Many people are familiar with the Plumeria pictured above. This is sometimes called Frangipani. It has a beautiful flower, which has been bred for different colors. But the tree is more or less the same for each of these different bloom colors. The Martello Tower Gardens had another species of Plumeria (below), which I hadn't seen before this Florida trip. Plumeria pudica has a different shaped leaf and the flowers are pure white, with the slightest bit of yellow in the center. (It's hard to see the yellow in my image due to the bright sun.)

Plumeria pudica

Lots and lots of Ruellias!

I have seen Screwpine trees (Pandanus) in just a couple of places.  They are known for their network of stilt roots, which are usually spiny.  The first time was in the tropical dome at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis.  The second time would be in conservatory at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, where there is a large Pandanus whose huge stilt roots reach into the water of the adjacent pond and fragment into a million tiny roots.  That was a site to see.  There are also quite a few Pandanus growing at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens in Miami.

Pandanus sanderi tree with amazing prop roots

Dark pink canna

Traveller's palm (Ravenala madagascariensis) in bloom

The tree pictured above is called the Traveller's Palm, although it is not really a palm.  I have seen these trees in just about every tropical, beach front area I have visited and always just assumed they were in the palm family (Arecaceae) or possibly the banana family (Musaceae).  But when I saw this tree at the Martello garden I realized it had to be in the same family as the Bird of Paradise (Strelitziaceae).  The bloom bracts are unmistakeably similar.  Reading the wikipedia page confirmed my conviction and also mentioned that this tree was once upon a time placed in the banana family - just as I would have put it, without seeing a bloom.  It belongs to the monotypic genus, Ravenala, and is native to Madagascar.

Rose cactus - Pereskia grandifolia

The plant pictured above is called "rose cactus" because it has nice blooms and some killer thorns.  It is actually a cactus, which kind of surprised me, since it does not have the normal succulent look to it.  We saw Ixora all over southern Florida and I really liked their profusion of blooms - usually coral in color, like the plant pictured below.

Coral colored Ixora

I think the Jatropha (below) was probably my favorite blooming plant at the Martello Tower, with dark leaves of interesting shapes and vibrant and contrasting blooms.

Jatropha integerrima

Well, the first half of this post was the colorful half.  The rest is shades of green only.  These happen to be some of my favorite plants.  I was really excited to see that the Key West Garden Club has a nice collection of Dieffenbachias and Aglaonemas inside their tower walls.  The plants are exposed to the elements and natural sunlight, but are inside a bricked area, so they are probably a little more sheltered.  Also, these plants were all growing in pots, whereas most of the rest of the plants in the gardens are growing in the ground.

Pellionia repens

But before we get to all of the Dieffenbachias, check out this large Pellionia repens.  I thought it was interesting to see how the leaf colors vary on this plant.  I have this species myself, growing in a tall glass terrarium.  It is sometimes referred to as "Trailing Watermelon Begonia," but it is not actually from the Begonia genus.  Good thing, because I have more luck with this plant, than I do with Begonias, generally speaking.  This species is probably the second most common Pellionia, after Pellionia pulchra.

Dieffenbachia oerstedii

Dieffenbachia maculata

I didn't know the ID of any of these Dieffenbachias for sure, but I had a pretty good idea about the one that turned  out to be Dieffenbachia amoena 'Tropic Snow'  because my mom has that one.  I consulted with my Dieffenbachia enthusiast friends and got help on the other names.  It turns out that the speckled plant pictured above is the species Dieffenbachia maculata and the plant below is a cultivar, Dieffenbachia maculata 'Rudolph Roehrs'.  In some cases, the cultivar reverts to the original species, as shown in this picture by my friend, Russ Hammer.

Dieffenbachia maculate 'Rudolph Roehrs'

Dieffenbachia amoena 'Tropic Snow'

The Martello Gardens also had a small, but happy collection of orchids and a small collection of bonsai trees.  The bonsai trees were all mislabeled, which I found to be interesting, but not surprising.  I bet they were all repotted at some point and then the labels got put back in the wrong pots.  I did notice that one label was in the wrong pot, but some of the labels didn't match any of the plants I saw.  Regardless, I could appreciate their appearance and really enjoyed my time at this garden!

Trip Report: The Audubon House

While in Key West last month, we visited "The Audubon House."  You would think with a name like this that the house would have once been under the ownership of someone with the name of Audubon.  It turns out the connection is a little less direct.  John James Audubon, the well known historical figure for his art depicting American birds, traveled to the Florida Keys in 1831 in order to paint the native birds of Florida.  While he was in the Keys, he stayed at the house next door to this house.

The Audubon House

John James Audubon's trip to the Florida Keys

The house has been preserved and connected with Audubon because he admired the gardens while he was in the area and supposedly painted some of the trees and plants into his portraits of various Florida birds.  The gardens have been kept in great condition as a tribute.

Roseate Spoonbill portrait by John James Audubon - my favorite from the Florida collection.

Tree loaded with blooming orchids in front of Audubon House

The house is now a shrine to his work and has a very nice garden outside.  We toured the house and gardens outside, enjoying the beautiful setting.  I think Christie and I could settle into this house just fine.  The trees outside are covered in orchids, and many of them were in bloom for our visit.

Brassavola orchid

Crinum lily bloom

Other interesting plants filled the flowerbeds, including a couple of large Crinum lilies, some yellow Walking Iris (Neomarica longifolia), and a nice Chenille plant (Acalypha hispida).

The yellow walking iris - Neomarica longifolia

Chenille plant - Acalypha hispida

There were lots of Calatheas scattered throughout the gardens, and concentrated here and there.  I have seen these growing in many botanic gardens, but not very often in an outdoor setting.

Calathea Peacock (so the sign reads)

The gardens also contain some Florida native plants, which would have been important to Audubon, as he preferred to paint his birds sitting on authentic trees and plants to the area where he would find them in nature.  One of the natives I really liked was this cycad, Zamia floridana.

Florida native cycad "Coontie" - Zamia floridana

Christie under a nice Staghorn fern

Philodendron stenolobum

There were also some nice aroids, including this large Philodendron stenolobum (above) and Alocasia portei (below). I loved the pendant Anthurium vittariifolium, with its pink berries showing (two below) and now have a small seedling plant from a recent plant trade. I hope my plant is this attractive some day.

A large Alocasia portei (in the center of the image)

Anthurium vittariifolium with berries on spadix

Chamaedorea metallica

My second favorite palm in the entire family is Chamaedorea metallica, which is called the Miniature Fishtail Palm, or Metallic Palm.  It has silver-blue leaves and striking orange flowers and berries.  It is small for a palm, with a maximum size of only 5 or 6 feet tall, and it is therefore usually growing as an understory tree.

Bed of Sansevierias - probably Sansevieria metallica.

You probably already know that I like Stapelias. Am I crazy or do the buds of the Stapelia below look just as cool as the open bloom? Yes, I did bend down and stick my nose into the flower to smell the pungency. And yes, I did request Christie do the same. She grudgingly did so - after a third or fourth request.

Stapelia leendertziae in bloom.

The Audubon House sits on a lot large enough to have several wandering paths through the gardens and 2 separate set-aside gardens: a water garden and an herb garden. The water garden was very tastefully designed, with some heron statues in the pond. I'm sure JJ Audubon would have liked to sit and stare at these nice statues.  The setting of this garden is similar to what I have talked about doing with a portion of our backyard, with the ground paved in either bricks or rock and a shallow pond or other small water feature.  Just a relaxing place to sit and enjoy the outdoors.

The appropriately decorated Audubon water garden.