The Variegated Thumb

Last week I posted about all of the plants in my office building, many of which were installed and are maintained by a plant care company.  The ladies were in the office yesterday, grooming the plants and watering them.  I waited until they were finished in our office and then followed them out into the hallway.  I really wanted a cutting of the Philodendron and figured the worst they could say is “no.”

I asked politely if they were allowed to share cuttings of the plants, and they lady said “Sure!”  I showed her the Philodendron and she whacked off 4 huge pieces for me.  She commented that it would just make the plant fuller, so she didn’t mind at all.

Philodendron erubescens 'Red Emerald' cuttings from office

I didn’t have time to get the cuttings set up in pots last night for rooting, so I just put them in a vase of water.  Christie (my wife) commented that it looks like a really nice bouquet on our table for the time being.  I’ll probably pot the cuttings this evening, but maybe I’ll do an experiment and see which cuttings root faster - those in dirt or those in water.  I’ve had pretty good luck with both and these are very healthy Philodendron cuttings.

Mr_subjunctive said that this plant looks like Philodendron ‘Red Emerald’ and I have to agree.  I think ‘Red Emerald’ is a cultivar from the erubescens species.  I have a Philodendron erubescens that looks very similar, except for the red coloration.

It’s nice to know that people who love growing plants are usually generous to share their success with others who also enjoy plants.

I’m not actually suggesting a new holiday.  It’s just a clever name for my post.  Although I wouldn’t mind this being a holiday - I already celebrate it everyday.

The National Weather Center - across the street from where I work.

[For those who are interested, I work on the research campus at the University of Oklahoma.  The research campus is made up of about six buildings built over the last 5 years.  These buildings are filled with academics, government groups and private companies (like the one I work for).  The anchor of the research campus is the National Weather Center.]

Aglaonema and a palm tree in the fourier of my office building

My office building (like the others on the campus) is a nice, new facility that has lots of plants in the hallways and office suites.  Plants are added for decoration, as well as to help purify air in the office environment.  This is a pretty trendy thing nowadays, and I guess it has been for quite a while.  What’s cool for me is that some of my favorite plants are those common plants kept as easy-care foliage plants (such as the Aglaonema pictured above).

Ficus tree, Sanseveira (short pot) and a very cool Philodendron

All of the plants are in really nice, huge pots.  And the plants are grouped in twos or threes.  This is my favorite grouping.  I walk by it each morning on my way up the stairs.  The Philodendron is so cool.  I think I might have to ask one of the plant maintainers if I could get a cutting…

Close-up of the really cool Philodendron in the stairwell.

Other common plants in the office building are Dracaenas, Epipremnum ivies and large Bird of Paradise.  Here is a nice grouping of two Dracaenas in the hallway.

Two tall Dracaena warneckii plants in the hallway.

Of course, being the planty guy that I am, all of these great plants scattered throughout the building aren’t enough for me.  I have my own set of plants on my desk: Philodendron hederaceum (’Micans’), Polyscias scutellaria, Scindapsus pictus, Aglaonema sp.  I used to have a Philodendron ‘Brazil’ on my desk, but it got too large and had to be taken home.

A shield Aralia (Polyscias scutellaria) on my desk next to the computer monitor.

The shield Aralia was a birthday gift the first year I started working here, so it’s now about 2 years old and has grown a lot.  I’ve heard that these plants are a little finicky and hard to keep.  No doubt it probably would not be as healthy as it is today if I wasn’t looking at it 5 days a week!  The office environment (and my constant watching eye) has apparently suited it well.

Philodendron hederaceum 'Micans'

My Philodendron ‘Micans’ is starting to grow as rapidly as my Philodron ‘Brazil’ did.  It had to be taken home when our company moved and my desk space was reduced.  I really like it’s rate of growth, but I hope the ‘Micans’ can stick around a while longer.

Scindapsus pictus and Aglaonema on my desk.

In addition to all sorts of health benefits in the office space, plants just make me happy and my work space would be depressing without them.

Do you keep any plants in your workspace?  Or does anyone else in your office?

I have had three recent acquisitions of new plants from generous friends.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my trip to see Steve Lucas’s tropical atrium.  I mentioned that Steve was kind enough to take cuttings of several of his plants and shared them with me.  I have also received some plants (most of them Aroids) through the mail recently from some of my plant friends.  Plant friends are great!  I thought I would bundle all my new plants into one post.  Most of them are Aroids, but there are a couple of plants from outside the Aroid family.  Here’s all of them:

Philodendron mayoi from Steve Lucas

Steve has A LOT of Aroids, many of them Philodendrons.  This particular Philodendron (P. mayoi) was named after a noted botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London - Dr. Simon Mayo.

Philodendron erubescens from Steve Lucas

Philodendron erubescens has really neat cataphylls that roll up into tight coils.  Many cataphylls are herbaceous, eventually turning papery and falling away.  These cataphylls are more persistent though.  The inflorescence of this Philodendron is a really beautiful red.  There are pictures on Steve’s website, if you’re interested.

Philodendron 69686 from Steve Lucas

This is likely a naturally-occurring hybrid from Brazil, commonly mislabelled as Philodendron Joepii (named after Joep Moonen).  There has been much confusion regarding this plant and it has yet to be given a name.  It retains the number until a registered cultivar name is assigned.

Philodendron mexicanum from Steve Lucas

This is beautiful Philodendron with a wonderful leaf shape and a nice red mottling on the undersides of the leaves.  By the way, Steve told me that noted Aroid collected Roberto Burle-Marx only collected plants for their interesting leaf shapes and didn’t care what their names were.  I found that very interesting.  There are a number of plants named after him.

Philodendron biliettiae from Steve Lucas

This Philodendron has a bright orange stem and very distinctive, long leaves.

Philodendron atabopoense from Steve Lucas

This Philodendron has a really cool coloration.  The undersides of the leaves, which you can’t see from the picture, are red.

Alocasia gageana from Steve Lucas

Steve has so many of these Alocasias spreading in his atrium every year that he has to rip them out and throw them away by the end of the summer season!  Can you believe that?  I helped him by removing one plant this Spring.

Rhaphidophora tetrasperma cuttings from Beth

I have enjoyed pictures of this Aroid for quite a while.  I went in search of a plant and found a friend, as well! :)  A fellow plant enthusiast (Beth in Mississippi) agreed to send me a cutting.  Actually she sent three and included some more surprises in the box, as well!

large variegated Monstera deliciosa cutting from Beth

Monsteras are wonderful Aroids, best known for their leaf fenestrations.  Beth sent me this large cutting of Philodendron ‘Pink Princess’ (below), which is a gorgeous hybrid.  Apparently she has several pots of this plant that each have 5 stems this size!

large Philodendron 'Pink Princess' cutting from Beth

She also threw in two really cool non-Aroid plants - Synadenium grantii ‘rubra’ and a variegated Pedilanthus tithymaloides.

2 stems of Synadenium grantii 'rubra' from Beth - rooting in Vermiculite

Beth told me that Synadenium roots very easily and quickly.  I have planted my two stems in moist Vermiculite, which has been the best rooting substance I have used in the past.  Beth also warned me to be careful with the sap of this plant, which will burn the skin worse than anything else she has ever encountered.  Vegetable oil can be used to remove the sap.

Pedilanthus tithymaloides from Beth

After a little research I found that Pedilanthus is a synonym for Euphorbia.  [I have a gigantic Euphorbia post prepared for Wednesday.  Stay tuned!]  This plants is sometimes called “Devil’s Backbone” or more favorably “Japanese Poinsettia.”  If I’m lucky, it will eventually produce small red or pink flowers at the top of the stems.

Philodendron hastatum from mr_subjunctive

A fellow blogger noticed that I had a plant on my wish list that he had seen locally.  He bought the plant, sent it to me and I reimbursed him for his troubles.  This Philodendron has a different name everywhere you see it.  It is commonly called Philodendron glaucophyllum (or glaucaphyllum), though I am told the true species name is hastatum.  Some common names used are “Silver Metal Philodendron” or “Blue Philodendron.”  Regardless, it is a very cool plant, and this one is in great condition.

Aglaonema 'Gold Dust' division from mr_subjunctive

Mr. Subjunctive had a large Aglaonema that he didn’t mind sharing.  He split off a large division and sent it to me.  He also included another cool, little foliage plant in my box - Pellionia pulchra.  He didn’t provide it’s name right away, to allow me to track it down.  I think I had seen pictures of this plant, but it took me some time before I got to the source.  Along the way I thought it might be in the Cissus genus or possibly even a Begonia.  My wife noted that the leaves are asymmetrical, which is true of all Begonia leaves.  Eventually I found the identity in one of my plant books - Ortho’s Complete Guide to Houseplants.  It’s a Pellionia pulchra, which is in the same family (Urticaceae) as another genus of common foliage houseplants - Pilea.  Pileas are the plants commonly called “Aluminum,” “Watermelon” and “Friendship” plants.

Pellionia pulchra from mr_subjunctive

That’s a lot of new additions!  Thanks, Steve, mr_subjunctive and Beth, for the wonderful plants.

About a month ago I was surfing the internet and decided I should look around on eBay to see if there were any interesting plants for sale.  That was a bad idea, because of course, there were.

I came across a very attractive Philodendron hybrid that I had never seen before.  It was labeled Philodendron ‘pincushion.’  Its primary catchiness comes from its small, tight-nit growth habit.  The leaves measure about an inch in length at their largest and the plant will form a small clump of leaves that look like a pincushion as it matures.  Many Philodendrons have leaves that change shape as the plant grows into a more mature specimen, but this particular hybrid stays petite for its entire life.  The foliage is a really nice glossy dark green with prominent red stems.  When I purchased the plant it was being marketed as a holiday plant since it was red and green.

[Here is what my plant was supposed to look like.]

I wasn’t sure if the name Philodendron ‘pincushion’ was a valid botanical name for my plant, so I sent a couple of pictures to the Aroid-L mailing list and had several members confirm that the name was valid.  I also found the name listed on the International Aroid Society’s list of registered hybrid names (Aroid Cultivar Registry).  You can see that list here.

The plant arrived in less than advertised condition.  I really should have expected as much since I ordered the plant in December, but the seller had convinced me they knew how to keep their plants free from the elements.  I have to give them credit for packaging the plant well - in damp peat moss inside a well insulated Styrofoam container.  The heat pack was even warm when I received the plant, but somehow it had still gotten nipped.  Either that, or it had gotten burnt by the heat pack.  It’s hard to say.  About half of the leaves had turned yellow and orange.

My Philodendron 'pincushion' upon arrival and transplanting

I divided the plant into a couple of clumps, putting one clump in a small spherical terrarium that had been emptied of its previous occupants and put the other clump in a small pot.  I’m really glad I divided the plant, because after just a couple weeks it was obvious that the terrarium was a preferable growing environment.  I went ahead and transplanted all of the plant to the terrarium, where it is doing much better than I expected.

My Philodendron 'Pincushion' as it looks now

New, glossy green leaves have emerged and I have removed the old leaves that died.  I’m hoping that this little Philodendron will fill the terrarium and I can occasionally take some cuttings to transplant to other locations.  This would make a really interesting “groundcover” in some of my larger container plants.  Maybe I could get some cuttings to take root in the soil surface of my Philodendron selloum…

My Philodendron selloum (tree philodendron)

Now that my plant has recovered I have some hope that it could one day serve as a ground cover in some of my larger pots.  It is a rather slow grower though, so I will have to be patient for it to fill out the area.

In December I posted about my new Philodendron ‘Xanadu’ plant.  This plant has been growing very successfully for me (this time around) for nearly 3 months, which is longer than I kept the other one alive.  Now I know the trick: don’t water it - ever.  Well, that’s a little harsh.  Don’t water it unless you’re certain you haven’t watered it for a month.

I imagine that trick will get modified slightly when I take the plant outdoors this summer, but for now, that works pretty well.

Recently I discovered that not only can I grow this plant, I can grow this plant like no one else can!  What I mean by that is that my plant has some weird mutations.

Mutation #1:

Two stems of my Xanadu are fused together all the way from the base of the stem to the first lobe of the leaves.  [Xanadu leaves have 6-8 lobes on each side.]

Fused Xanadu leaves and stems

I just checked the photo I took of my Xanadu when I bought it and I can see the 2 fused leaves.  So they were there from the beginning and just slipped my notice until now.

Mutation #2:

The other odd mutation is a small “leaflet” that is rising from the midrib near the base of one of the leaves.  I don’t think this leaflet was there from the beginning.

tiny Xanadu leaflet

Neither of these mutations appears anywhere else on the plant.  What are the odds that both of these two mutations would occur on the same plant?  [Don't try to calculate that.]

Mystery solved

I sent pictures and explanations of my two “mutations” to the International Aroid Society mailing list and received a response from none other than Julius Boos.  Julius first described Philodendron ‘Xanadu’ as a new species back in the Aroideana #25 in 2002.  He said the odd features are common deformations seen in this species and he suspects they are caused by the method by which the plant is propagated and produced.  Millions of these plants are grown by tissue culture and treated with different chemicals.  In volume 31 of Aroideana Julius describes the various chemical treatments that are used on ‘Xanadu’, their purpose and their suspected side effects.  It turns out that it is not all that rare for either of these deformations to be seen on Xanadus.

Julius said that in time (maybe years) my plant might grow out of the deformations.  I guess he is assuming that I don’t care for them.  However, I find them fascinating and the oddity just adds to the appeal of the plant.  I don’t really mind if my plant never grows out of them.