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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