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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