#veitchii

[53v3nfrn5]

‘Earth Angel Parfuma’ Roses + ‘Veitchii’ Gardenias from my garden

[erjmokay]

Oh, my beautiful children.

[creativecommonsplants]

Pitcher Plant by Geoff McKay on Flickr.

This work is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

[gaytobymeres]

nothing makes me sound more like a snob than when i am talking about a planting scheme i dislike

[thebotanicalarcade]

n111_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: The Floral magazine. v.6 London,L. Reeve & Co. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5931417

[milkconfetti]

embiggening…..

[twosides--samecoin]

I know this isn't a plant account but I'm really excited about this Anthurium veitchii because he is my first try with a species in the genus and also he survived transport shock/a random mid-May cold snap where he was in 1 degree C overnight! Minimal cold damage too, what a trooper

[cryptid-anarchist]

Been a while since my last plant update apparently, everyones growing and adjusted to my apartment! We'll see how the cephalotus is doing in a year but letting a shallow tray dry for 2-3 days at a time seems to be working out

[artbyisabelh]

Six on Saturday 04/20/2024

[qk-yuan]

Nepenthes veitchii (bario) x mirabilis 'Viking'

Still a little baby but this is the biggest pitcher I've gotten out of all of them.

I have some grown from seed, but this one was bought from someone on Carousell; I got the plant and then realised it's literally the same hybrid I already had seeds of. <- idiot

[stolenpixel]

Photos by Mavis V

[spacelazarwolf]

tldr scroll down to see my new plants.

this is a departure from my usual posts, it's a bit more like hybrid blog/diary entry, idk, but here u go.

for those of y'all who don't know, one of my hobbies is plants. i like to collect them propagate them, trade them, etc. and my favorite type of plant is aroids, particularly philodendrons. it was a very difficult hobby to maintain after the plant boom during lockdown caused plant prices to skyrocket, so for the past year or two i haven't relaly been buying that many new plants, and when i have it's just been from garden centers or local nurseries.

yesterday, however, i went to an aroid show where there was a vendor from south america who had brought a bunch of specimens people could purchase. they're a family owned business that focuses on protection and preservation of biodiversity and native plant species, and all their plants are ethically sourced, usually grown in their own greenhouses from propagations instead of taking them from their natural habitat and selling them. so obviously i had to check them out.

but this is where i sort of pause while writing this post, because i get really nervous talking about spending money, especially on here. i've frequently asked for help when i needed assistance getting my account out of the red or paying late rent, so part of me feels like it would be insulting to post about things i spend money on that aren't the essentials. but my plants make me happy. they give me something to take care of. they brighten up my apartment. they give me something to be excited about. so i'm just gonna tell you about my new plants.

about a month ago when i left my old church job, they gave me a gift card that the choir had pitched in for. i couldn't get cash out, use it for rent, or transfer it to my bank account, so i decided it would be my hobby fund. when i found out about the aroid show, i set aside a portion of that fund for plants because i knew that the specimens at the show would be significantly less expensive than anything i could find online or in local shops, and it might be one of the only chances i would ever have to actually buy some of my wishlist plants.

this is a philodendron esmeraldense. this is what they look like when the leaves get bigger and more mature. this is one i hadn't seen before so it wasn't on my wishlist, but when i was checking the vendors' stock last week i loved how it looked. i'm gonna put it on a moss pole and let it climb. the leaves probably won't ever get as big as the one in the linked photo, but i'm still excited to watch it grow.

this is a terrible picture but this is a philodendron patriciae. they get super long. this one’s putting out like two new leaves. it’s also a climber. the ripples in the leaves get more intense as it matures, so paired with the very long leaves it looks so cool. i can't wait to grow this one bigger.

philodendron pastazanum. it’s a crawler so i’ll be getting a window box to put it in so it has space to grow across the substrate. this has been on my list for a while but i couldn’t find it anywhere. the big heart leaves are just gorgeous.

this is a philodendron melanochrysum. the leaves can get huge. technically i already have a smaller one, but this one was just so gorgeous. i will probably end up planting them together on one moss pole. it’s one of my favorite plants, i am a sucker for velvety leaves. you can see one of the older leaves is getting ready to drop, and i think i'm going to try to make a project out of it.

philodendron tortum. it feels like the kind of plant that would have been growing while the dinos were around. it's very reminiscent of a fern, but it is also a climber. i had one like two years ago but i had to sell it to pay some bills, so i'm happy to have it back in my collection.

the one in the center. anthurium veitchii, or king anthurium. this one was kind of an impulse buy. i don’t usually do anthurium but it was cheap and looked incredibly cool. they look even cooler when they get mature.

what is a king without his queen. anthurium warocqueanum, or queen anthurium. i wasn't sure if i wanted to tackle this one bc it's notoriously hard to take care of, but it was very cheap so i took the plunge. these also get super long, and the velvety shiny leaves are so pretty.

monstera obliqua peru. this was a unicorn plant. it is difficult to find in the wild, grows slowly, and is hard to propagate, so it was mostly just passed from collector to collector until the plant boom during covid. nodes of this plant, literally just bits of stem you would cross your fingers and hope would root and grow leaves, were going for a thousand dollars and a single leaf up to three thousand dollars a year or two ago. and now i have a very full plant for only forty bucks. 2020 me is screaming. this specimen looks a little squished from the trek from south america to the midwest, but when it acclimates to its new environment, it's going to look so cool. this is another plant that has dino vibes.

and finally the grand finale. philodendron spiritus sancti. i honestly can't believe i'm typing this. this plant is considered to be one of the rarest philodendrons in the world - if not the rarest. it only grows in one place, and there are reportedly only 10 known plants left in the wild because of a combination of poaching and the excessive clearing of their habitat. it was another one that pretty much only existed in high level (wealthy) collections for a very long time. now, more specimens of this plant exist in private collections than in the wild, which makes ownership of this plant very emotional for me. this is a plant that was going for upwards of $14k for large specimens at the height of the plant boom. people were scrambling to get their hands on that one plant that no one could get, the highest prize, a bragging point. no one cared if they were getting it ethically. someone even stole a cutting from a botanical garden just to sell it.

this plant was not on my wishlist because i never thought i would even get to see in person, let alone hold, let alone own. and yet yesterday i picked it up, held it in my hands, saw the two digit price tag, and decided yeah. i think it's only fair that the money a bunch of presbyterians gave me should go to adding a plant called a "spiritus sancti" to my jewish plant collection.

it still doesn't feel real. i can just look over at my plant cabinet, and there it is. a spiritus sancti. bc for me it was never about having a big name plant in my collection. it was never about bragging or showing off or just checking names off a list of things i was supposed to want if i was into houseplants. this plant still exists because botanists and aroid enthusiasts have worked tirelessly to conserve it. and having this little piece of history and the world in my little plant cabinet feels more like a responsibility to me than a prize.

so yeah. those are my new plants. i'm excited to see them grow and still a little starstruck that i was even able to bring home the last two.

[clovers-carnivores]

Do you have a favorite carnivorous plant? Also do you have one to recommend to someone who is just getting into them?

It's hard to decide because there are so many really cool ones but my favourite carnivorous plant is probably Nepenthes Veitchii. I think they're very cool.

For someone who's just beginning growing them, what plants are easier to grow depends a bit on where you live and what the weather conditions are like there and what conditions you'll be growing your plants in. Generally I find the more common species of sundew are easiest to grow. Drosera capensis is practically unkillable and its classified as a weed in some countries because of how easily it grows and how difficult it is to get rid of. Rosette species like d.capillaris and d.spathulata are also pretty easy to grow. Depending where you are a lot of kinds of Sarracenia are pretty easy as well. I've seen venus flytraps often reccomended as a beginner plant but I've always found them a bit harder to keep alive than my sundews. But maybe I'm just bad at flytraps. I also live in Australia aka sundew land. Do some research on what kinds of carnivorous plants are found in your local area and look for ones with similar growing conditions.

[thebotanicalarcade]

n67_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Wholesale trade list /. Elizabeth, N.J. :Elizabeth Nursery Co.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46140845

[milkconfetti]

veitchii already about to outgrow my grow shelf and its less than a year old and uhhh i do Not know where i’m gonna put it when it does