Seemannia purpurascens up close and personal looking for vascular tissue

This is a slice of Seemannia purpurascens. It's really fun to look at different plant materials under the microscope!

You will note that it's got the bright purple outer layer because the plant looks purple when you observe it.

The majority of the stuff in the middle is the pith. What I'm trying to find are the vascular bundles.

 This is a diagram that is copyrighted and property of Pearson Education Inc. I don't quite know how to site their work except to say that it is theirs and they are excellent.

You will observe that the phloem (food conducting ducts) and the xylem (water conducting ducts) are grouped in "bundles" around the outer rings of the stem. Let's see if we can see them in our unstained but pretty clear cross cutting of the Seemannia stem.


Moving from the outside to the very center, you see the outer hairs, then the pink outermost layer. It touches the yellow layer next and then we get to the what we're looking for. You see a darker thin yellowish line with some clearer bundles of stuff next. Hopefully, we've found vascular bundles of tissue.

Lastly comes the clear middle, or pith which functions mostly to support the stem.

When I was looking at the outer surface of a leaf I was absolutely stunned to find that the hair are STRIPED! Look closely at some of the lower ones in the photo. It goes purple stripe, white, purple stripe, white, etc.

It's the completely unexpected and wonderful stuff that you find that really makes this fun!

This is the leaf surface where the stripy hairs come from. You can sort of get the gist from the real-size view but it's the upper photo and the magnification that shows the very cool patterning in the 'hairs'. What on earth does this do to be advantageous for the plant? It must do something or it would be like this.

 I took the leaf pictured above and cut a thin slice through the petiole and leaf blade. The bigger lump over on the left is the petiole and you see thin leaf surface and secondary lumps where the veins got cut.

Note in the middle of the main leaf petiole you can see two lines of darker color... I'm thinking it is more vascular tissue like the main stem.

 This is the same bit of leaf magnified more. The lines in the middle show up better.

Anyway... pretty cool what's inside the gesneriads eh? Almost as cool as what we appreciate them for on the outside. I might have to slice up a flower from this Seemannia when it blooms and see what's inside it too.

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Gloxinia 'Dragon Song' up close and personal

 This is a single flower from a Gloxinia 'Dragon Song'. It's got the neat pouch-shaped bottom to the flower.

These bloom on an inflorescence that is tall and holds many small flowers above the foliage. Cool looking plant with nice shiny dark colored foliage.

 I'm intrigued by what else you can see if you go beyond just looking at the obvious... the color and shape of the flower.

I can see that like most gesneriads it has the anthers joined in the middle.

I had to include an outside shot too because the gesneriad flowers are also almost always covered, like the rest of the plant, in 'hair'.

 A good part of the petals are cut off in this shot to make it easier to see the pistal and stamen of the plant.

If you look closely you see the top of the pollen sacs, and towards the front of the photo you see it is brighter white and that is some of the pollen breaking it's way out of the pollen sac almost ready to pollinate another flower.

 The 'top' side of the pollen sacs, nicely joined. Even the filaments (the tall things that hold up the anthers) have hair on them!

 A little closer look which, let's face it, is cool looking.

 The front white object is the female part, the pistil, of which you can see the top knob part (the stigma) and just a little of the style.

It appears to have some pollen clinging to it. It might also be contamination from beating up the blossom and cutting away some of the petals to get the view.

 This is the 'bottom' side view of the pollen sacs with some of the pollen ready to be released out into the world.

If a pollinator like a bee or a fly comes along and investigates the interior of the blossom, some of this pollen will likely stick to the insect and it will be transported over to the next flower visited.

Every type of flower has a distinct type of pollen. Sometimes pollen from prehistoric times is also found in fossils and scientists can identify what sorts of plants were present when that flower was alive thousands and thousands of years ago.

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Mail Ordering from Rob's Violet Barn

 I want to give a big KUDOS to the fine folks at Rob's who are offering some really cool and very interesting gesneriads lately!

It's one of the few places that you can get the truly "unusual" varieties and expand your collection of genera!

I've been mail-ordering a lot this past year, including orders which are 'winter shipped' and I have to report that I've not lost any plant material to shipping problems - even in the cold. The top picture was one of the recent orders with such lovely plants such as the little Diastema luteolumined (shown in the lower photo).

I also want to mention that I've received some very excellent plant materials from other vendors also.... (and I'm not trying to leave anyone out) such as Lyon's, Kartuz and Neil's Streps. I've gotten some really fine things from Ebay too.

The point here is that I encourage everyone to support their gesneriad vendors and order up some new and interesting plants!

For myself personally, I get bored seeing the same 'Lipstick' vines over and over with nothing else to choose from. That being said, the argument can be made that until you master that type of plant you don't need to go looking for something else.... BUT, I don't agree with that line of thinking at all.

I'm very interested in seeing as many and as diverse of plant choices as possible! If we are to interest the public in GESNERIADS then we need to have something to impress, excite, and wow people so that they want to learn more.

Think of some of the environmental campaigns to save certain endangered animals. Sometimes it's the 'cute' factor that first stimulates interest in the animal, such as baby tigers. Who doesn't love them???? But after getting people on board and educating  them as to the importance of the specific animal other things like the animal's environment become important too and also get the attention - AND hopefully the conservation efforts.

I feel we MUST get the gesneriads out into the public's eye. This will make our hobby clubs more exciting by hopefully getting more new members to join us, but it will also draw attention to the fact that we MUST have more study of some of these types of plants and their wild habitats.

Some of these plants are becoming extinct literally before they've even been discovered. There are new and previously UNIDENTIFIED GESNERIADS being discovered for the first time ever each year. Imagine finding a brand new species never before described in 2012? It should amaze and excite everyone that this is even possible! And to think that many are already gone due to habitat destruction before we can even see what is out there we're destroying.

Please... think of ordering some gesneriads! Vendors will supply what people are willing to buy, so please think of trying out some of the new and unusual, they are very rewarding to grow and have bloom! I'm excited.... I hope you are too!

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Hangin' Around: Aeschynanthus 'Purple Star' and Nematanthus 'Tropicana'

 So.... what do you do with the hanging baskets you put outside during the summer season? You can bring them in and make them feel like they are back in the wild by hanging them in their own tree.

Actually, this works pretty well if you keep any of the larger potted plants in your house. You don't have to hang them, you can arrange them around the bottom of the taller plant's pot and use them as a soil cover to make the pot look good. It's also easy to water everything this way too.

It seems that there is enough light by a patio door to get most of the "Lipstick" type vines to bloom.

Nice to see a little color in the colder months too!

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Streptocarpus 'Roulette Cherry and Beloved'

 Janice sent in these lovely shots of "What's doin' the blooming" today!

This is Streptocarpus "Beloved". I'm especially intrigued by the patterning in the lower lobes of the flower. You will also note that the petals are more "joined at the base" in some of the newer hybrids making the flower more "tubular" and also more Petunia-like.

The ruffled edges are also striking.

This is one of the more unique flowers in the world of Streptocarpus also. The intense coloration on the edges of a white flower make quite a statement.

Thanks for sharing today!

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Finding Treasure: Mandirola ichthyostoma

I was just wandering down to my plant room *wander, wander, and I thought I spotted a color that I hadn't seen before. Who could resist running right over to see what it might be?

I took the dome off one of the trays of plants and I almost didn't know what to do! I found this really excellent, fringed and lovely orchid-colored flower that I simply did not recognize. The camera came out even before I knew what I was going to be taking a photo of.

 I had to untangle a couple of stems but I brought it out and read what was written on the pot. It said that the seeds were started two years ago! Looking back, the seedlings had been very small at first, and I thought they might have tiny rhizomes but the pot only had one or two little stems that didn't do much initially. Nothing much seemed to be going on so it got left and ignored for another year. It's sort of amazing that it wasn't tossed accidentally because not much had been happening.

But now.... the rhizomes must have re-sprouted and grown into a pretty good looking plant. It's got bloom spikes that should make quite a nice display too.

The blooms are large and good looking. I'm finding the fringed look rather charming as well.

I initially misspelled Mandirola with the 'i' in the wrong place and Google couldn't find it. Turns out even with the right spelling there isn't much information easily available either. It is also known as Gloxinia ichthyostoma.

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Sinningia 'Bewitched' with Joined Anthers

This is Sinningia 'Bewitched'. It's pretty interesting in a few ways. The plant, hybridized by Peter Shalit, is a complex hybrid from S. cardinalis 'Skydiver'  and S. macropoda. It has a peloric flower, meaning that it has
unusual regularity in the form of a flower that is normally irregular - all the petals are the same.

It's interesting in a few more ways too....




You will note that the stamen are joined in a ring and fused together. This doesn't happen is all flowers. Gesneriads are one of the families that this frequently happens in and it is a distinguishing characteristic of the family.

 Gesneriads as a rule have five petals fused at the base to form a tube and are zygomorphic - or able to be divided symmetrically along only one plane. If there is an exception the flower will present a recessive mutation and the flower will have five or more petals arranged to form a circular flower.

You will see that our flower has six petals and six filaments.

 


The stamen seem to help push the petals open and present themselves even before the flower is open.

Here you can see the effect from the front and side views. The stamen are held well away from the flower.


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Ariel Rhizomes are Fun!

 Ok this is just too cool not to post! Here is my Seemannia gymnostoma! Look at all the awesomely-awesome arial rhizomes!

It seems that grown under a dome and in high humidity the plant puts out lots and lots of these!

THIS PHOTO IS PROPERTY OF ROB'S VIOLET BARN, and it's not my photo but they have a really nice tutorial of how to plant the arial rhizomes and what to do. Look here: Rob's Tutorial I think you'll find this pretty interesting!







Back to my plant once again... I'm not sure just what to do with it, leave it to see if I can get more rhizomes, or follow the instructions and plant some up. Hmmmm.

Anyway, the plant room is full of interesting things this month! More to follow shortly.

Blogger is having trouble, so some of the look and usual layout will be unavailable till they fix the problem. Sorry.

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Northtown Show!

 Come'on down and see the Northtown display and sale!

The Twin Cities Chapter of the
GESNERIAD SOCIETY
is joining with the AVSM African violet society and displaying some fine flora for you to enjoy!

 Violets, gesneriads... sale plants for you to try...

Information and growing advice..... questions answered.... we have it all for your education and enjoyment!


Please join us!

Northtown mall, Fridley.

10:00 am to 5:00 pm Friday and Saturday.

The Demise of Streptocarpus 'Stroke of Luck'

 

"Our human servant, The One With Thumbs Who Doth Open All Our Cans, aka: "Mom",  didn't put ice in this for me this morning. How many times have I mentioned it... politely even? I went around her ankles five different times and told her... humans, they NEVER listen"

"Ivy, why is she not listening and always so forgetful lately? Do you suppose it's Alzheimer's or that unfortunate incident where we were all asleep on the steps that one night. All we heard for two days was yelling about seeing black cats in pitch darkness... I don't know why they go on and on about everything so much.  It was rather funny, didn't you think so too?"

 "Well if I must.... we all have to tighten our collars and make do with what we have in these economic times. I for one didn't think that some simple ice cubes would really be such a bother... I mean... it's not like I ask for my Fancy Feast to be warmed to 110 deg. F. every day... just on the weekends. And you would think it was the end of the world to want fresh kibble put into the bowl four times a day... sheesh.... It gets stale after an hour or two you know."

"I'm a little hungry, Ivy and it would have been so nice to be served a little snack with my beverage. Is that too much to ask?  But, as usual, I think I hear Mom on the phone with Dad again."

"Walter,  you know since she thinks she threw us out of her precious plant room already, I was just thinking ..."

"Oh Ivy, you always have the best ideas! The wet hairball on the bathroom floor late that one night was hysterical!"

"No, no... not about that, although it was one of my better jokes! I was just thinking that, as usual, you're right! A light snack would tide us over till she gets the next batch of kibbles properly served. I'm certainly not going to go down there begging for just anything and make myself look pathetic. (You didn't hear the treat bag crinkle did you, Walter?) Perhaps there's something up here that will be tasty and not too filling, -  you know, so we don't spoil lunch #3."

"Walter, do you know why Winston thinks that it's cool to sleep in the dirt bucket?"
**ponders**

"Hey, Winston!  Are you starving too? What do you think about a little snack before Mom is back from ratting us out to Dad about that simple misunderstanding about the glasses on the counter this morning?"

**Time passes**

**Whistling casually** "Guys, we are the BEST! There isn't one little thing to make Mom even suspect we got back in her precious plant room! Everything is all just like it was and she'll never even know.  Winston, you were right about not taking the whole thing, just like when we lick the cookies. If you leave most of it they NEVER EVEN SUSPECT! The blue parts aren't as tasty as the sweet, sweet white parts anyway."

 
"Hey, Winston? What do you want to do now? The laundry just came out of the dryer.... I think it's warm.....!"

Violet Show at the Olbrich Conservatory, Madison

 I had the honor of getting to judge the WI grower's African violet show at the Olbrich Conservatory in Madison, WI this past weekend.

Not only was the violet show filled with lovely and interesting things, the conservatory was too!

I want one of these dripping off the trellis at my house.

Along the pathways you might just stumble upon a gesneriad like this nice basket of Kohleria 'Napoleon V' .

 I was pretty taken with the "Lipstick Vine" that gets its own personal waterfall. I can see that if I just have a stream running through the plant room (which of course every husband would endorse) I could also grow one that looks this large and lush!

Just for fun.... I had to include this tiny person for some scale on this rather large 'Angle Trumpet' tree. Again... got to expand the plant room... blow off the roof... build up a story or two.... *dreams on...

 The pathways and garden are a thing of beauty. There are free-roaming quail and canaries, Koi the size of submarines and orchids all over the place. The fragrance is lovely too.

Here's a shot of the show tables. Really top notch plants shown. It was a delight to be asked to come on down to do the judging.

Only a small section of the gesneriad table featuring the (formerly known as) Chiritas and a couple of others.

Got the itch for a day trip? Drive on down to the Madison, WI Olbrich Gardens.... very nice!

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