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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