LeafVibe

A strange, yet familiar, smell managed to wind its way around the house once more. Of course, I knew what it was. My little flower had tripled in size and though it is still quite small, it wasn’t as small as I thought it would’ve been.

I don’t know what this is (I’ve sent in an email that will hopefully get a response in a day or two), so I can’t really say much more about it. As usual, here’s some pretty pictures to go with this entry.

Later this week I’ll be heading down to Fairchild once again for this year’s Mango Fest. There will be pictures galore from that, so check back again Saturday/Sunday.

Tags: amorphophallus, unknown species
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I had suspected there was a new flower growing over the last few days as I kept an eye on a small specimen. Today it finally grew to where I can definitely confirm it is a flower. I don’t know what this particular plant is; it may be one of a few unidentified/unknown species that I have. Thankfully because it is a flower, I can take a picture and ask some experts to see if they can identify it, and finally add a label to this plant if I can.

I’ll be keeping tabs on this as I think it’ll bloom within the next week or so. This is the smallest flower I’ve had so far, so it’ll be interesting to see what it looks like!

Tags: amorphophallus, unidentified species
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A lot of the plants I have that go dormant are usually put into my storage box unless they’re too large. It’s nothing fancy as it’s just a drawer I took from one of my closet shelves. I mix a soil-less with extra perlite, add some water so it’s just a tad moist and cool to the touch, and then bury the dormant tubers in it until they wake up. I often go and check them out (probably four time a week or so) to check that there’s no rot, see if any growth has started, aerate the mix, and add some more water if needed. One particular week I had been busy so I had not been able to check out the dormant plants as often as I’d have liked, and to my surprise there were several saying hello.

Some that were shipped in from other parts of the world as well as the ones I had acquired here were beginning to wake up and stretch out their roots for the season. Before I busied myself for the afternoon potting everyone, I made sure to snag some photos so I could compare in the fall how their growth was (I should’ve weighed them too!). Hopefully they get just as big or bigger by the time they go back to sleep.

Tags: amorphophallus, decus-silvae, eichleri, koratensis, maxwellii, muelleri, taurostigma, titanum, unidentified species
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So this morning I awoke to a funny smell in the house. It was familiar, but for a moment I wasn’t quite sure what it was. That was until it dawned on me that it had to be something in the plant room. A moment later, I had my answer.

My Amorphophallus bulbifer had bloomed. Outside of the plant room, there was a scent of rotten eggs, but once in the room, the smell hit you like a wall. I can only really describe it (at the time of writing) as what happens when you find really old uncooked eggs next to a glass of rotten milk, and it’s slowly getting worse. I don’t expect it to get too bad though, at least I hope not. I just checked and my eyes felt a little burning. Potent little bugger!

Also getting ready for a debut, at least if things go well, are my A.konjac and A.koratensis. Pics of all three are below.

Tags: amorphophallus, bulbifer, konjac, koratensis
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It’s been over a month already since the last entry! Where has time gone? Thanksgiving is tomorrow (well, today considering it’s currently 3:35AM as I write this sentence). Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that nothing has happened.

Over the last month, we were hit with a pretty sudden cold front. Having not been properly prepared for the event, the plants got to experience their first cold breeze for this year. Some of them were triggered into going into early dormancy. The ones that have gone to sleep for now are sitting in a box with other species that I had delievered over the time between the last entry and now (more on them some other time, perhaps spring when they’re waking up). The rest, after quickly placing an order for a small room heater, are now happily sitting in the guest bedroom to spend their winter vacation. Although the cool breeze did shake some up a bit, they seem back to normal.

On a positive note, and although I will get to the rest some other entry soon, I did get my hands on an Amorphophallus dactylifer. I mention this particular one because shortly after receving it, it has begun to come out of dormancy. However, so far it’s been growing quite fast but has no roots; my assumption here is that I might actually get a flower for winter! I’m not completely sure about that yet, but I will know in about a week for sure exactly what it’s doing.

There’s also a bulbifer (also one of the recent readditions to the family) that is also doing similar to the A.dactylifer. So in the end, I may not get one but TWO flowers next month. If this is what is happening, December should be a pretty exciting year for me as it’ll be the first (and maybe second) time that I get a flower since I moved.

That’s it for this update; just a quick note of how things are going and that I haven’t forgotten about this blog. Look out for an entry sometime next month for details about my recent set of aquisitions. Other than that, have a nice Thanksgiving!

Tags: amorphophallus, bulbifer, dactylifer
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So the last two days I got some plant orders (and an auction item) I got a few days ago. One kind that I got was one I’ve wanted for a while: a rainbow eucalyptus tree (I took a picture of a full grown one here). They’re very small trees, so there is plenty of time before they grow to their full height; somewhere around 200 feet high.

The other plants shown are ones I wanted (new species in my collection), and one that I already have several of, just much bigger.

Tags: amorphophallus, eucalyptus, prainii, titanum
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So after about two weeks of waiting, I finally got an order for seeds of another species I was looking for: Amorphophallus hewittii. I bought twenty seeds (at a cost of $20 flat, which is a great rate I think). Nine of them have already been potted, and the rest I will either grow and sell, or attempt to sell the seeds. Hopefully within a week or so there will be some sign of germination; I did notice some seeds already with what appeared to be grown points forming and because of that, I planted them with the would-be points facing up.

While we’re on the topic of seeds, I now have three out of five A.titanum seeds that have germinated (as indicated in the last three pictures). They’re growing very well; the only odd one would be the third, as it is growing out of the side of the seeds rather than the top. Hopefully a leaf will appear on the first one in the next two weeks. I’m actually quite curious to know the length it time it takes between germination and leaf growth.

Oh, and only five more days until the Aroid Show and Sale!

Tags: amorphophallus, hewittii, seeds, titanum
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Over the weekend I found a place that sold the plant I was looking for close by. Although I could’ve ordered them from overseas, the minimum cost of purchase alone (I’ve found them to be over $150) already deters me, and then the requirement of phytosanitary certificates also cost quite a bit; all this is even before you even get around to shipping and handling.

It’s not that they’re super rare, it’s just that the main reason I couldn’t find them was because most of them are all in active growth and because of that, no one ships them. Due to this, I figured I’d keep a wandering eye out but not actively search until the fall and winter when they were dormant. Well, it just so happen when I wasn’t looking for it, I found them. A Florida-based company called Gardino Nursery had what I was looking for: Amorphophallus Paeoniifolius. More importantly they had it in stock for shipping. So today the mailman rang the doorbell and here they are:

Side note: The last picture above is the Amorphophallus titanum who’s leaf was developing here. It’s grown quite a bit since then; just decided to slide it into this entry while I was taking pictures of the other plants.

Tags: amorphophallus, paeoniifolius, titanum
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Today while running another errand, a friend and I decided to take a detour and by visiting Fairchild Tropcial Botanic Gardens. The pictures are of the Windows to the Tropics, Richard H. Simons Rainforest, Butterfly Garden, and a few other areas and contain dozens of plants that one could walk right up to if you choose to. This is only a small (very small) view of the gardens.

Tags: amorphophallus, Fairchild, paeoniifolius, palm, titanum, tree
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We all know people have to start somewhere no matter what you’re doing, and usually that’s the beginning. So where did I start? A plant named Mr. Stinky.

If you haven’t heard of him before, he’s located at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens here in South Florida in the Windows to the Tropics Conservatory. If you do some searching you’ll most likely come across news reports and pictures of this amazing plant (like this) but you won’t find much since it has been some time since his last bloom. You’ll find more pictures under the following name: Amorphophallus Titanum.

Although I was not there for the first bloom, I did go for the second and third but sadly never at the true peak of his bloom. After seeing the massive size and smelling the stench of something that shouldn’t be alive, it was enough though to spark an interest in this particular genus; an interest that really didn’t take off until a few months ago.

Shortly thereafter I obtained my first two species: Amorphophallus Bulbifer and an Amorphophallus Carneus, both of which had flowered and, just like their giant relative, smelled “unique” but not as potent. I guess the description I could match it up with is some old eggs and some rotten milk with a hint of garbage. Since that time I lost them (I might get into that in a future entry), but it was enough to keep me hooked. Fast forward a couple of years to where I am now and my current collection, all of which I will go into detail when I get the chance.

• Amorphophallus decus-silvae (1)
• Amorphophallus konjac (3; 12 others which have yet to be potted or come out of dormancy)
• Amorphophallus titanum (11; +5 seeds, 2 which have started germination so far)

Although the variety is somewhat small, I’m hoping to expand it a bit more during the Aroid Show and Sale (I will definitely post about that when and if it happens depending on Hurricane Ike). I would say that the above are my prize possessions but they’re not the only thing I grow. I also have a couple blond[e] flamethrower palms, a queen palm, a coconut tree, three champion mango seedlings, red and white passionflower vine, three hibiscus plants, a mango tree from Egypt if I remember right (the name escapes me at the moment), a gladiolus bulb, and a platycodon.

I think that’s quite a bit for now. So for closing, I’ll leave you with pictures of some of my collection currently living in the garage until enough money is saved up for a proper greenhouse.

Tags: amorphophallus, decus-silvae, Fairchild, hibiscus, konjac, mango, palm, titanum, tree
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