dear santa: odd plants!
Cousin Jenny shared some of the plants on her wish list. I thought I’d share them here myself in case some of you might be looking for some interesting plant gifts for gardeners that aren’t typical garden center offerings. These aren’t generally what you’d call “pretty” flowers, but boy are they fascinating.
Stapelia gigantea with my hand for scale
Earlier I’d posted on my Stapelia gigantea, and she mentioned that she wouldn’t mind having one herself.
She also sent a list of some of the other larger-flowered species in the genus that she was interested in, including S. grandiflora, shown here in an image by Quadell from the Wikimedia Commons [ source ]. And should any of my santas be reading this, I wouldn’t mind having some of them myself. Species in this genus make interesting houseplants or grow well outdoors with dry-average water conditions in places that don’t freeze. Beware of the flowers, however, because they smell like roadkill–but in a good way!
White Bat Flower
And then there was this white bat flower (Tacca integrifolia) that she photographed at the UNC Botanical Gardens last year. This species is probably considered to be the most choice of the genus, but there are several other equally stange, whiskered tacca species. Although I haven’t ever grown them, it appears that taccas are shade plants that don’t ever ever like to freeze or dry out. Once again, they might be good houseplant selections, although not plants that would be easy to bring into bloom. Finding them, even with all the resources of the Internet, is a major challenge.
Much easier to find of the plants on her list is the butterfly amaryllis, Hippeastrum papilio. It’s also easy to grow and flower. Now, Jenny, why ever would you want a plant that’s easy to grow? Where’s the challenge? At least the flowers look more exotic than the single-colored windowsill amaryllises. [ image source ]
To Jenny’s list I’d like to add one of my own wants. I have a long-term interest in orchids that goes back to my early teen years. One of the plants that I’ve never been able to secure in twenty years of looking is an example from the Genus Ophrys. The plants of this genus have intriguing flowers that look like female wasps. In the spring, the male wasps flit about, looking for a little insect-lovin’. When they find the willing ophrys flowers they go to town, apparently satisfying themselves while pollinating the flower. Charles Darwin was also fascinated by the genus, and looked at them in detail in his The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects. (The entire book is available online for free via Google Books.)
Here’s a YouTube video of one of these insects in action. Warning: This is extremely graphic. Children should be sheltered from viewing this clip unless you want to have a long discussion about the birds and the bees and cross-dressing plant species. Like most pornography, the clip does go on a little too long.
Ophrys species generally come from Mediterranean regions of Europe, so I’m thinking many of them would do well outdoors where I am in San Diego. But where to find them? About twenty years ago I was corresponding with a biology grad student in France. He sent me some seeds, but I was never able to germinate them. (Have you ever tried to grow orchids from seed?!)
Even now that Santa has the Internet available to him or her, ophrys tubers are just about impossible to get on this side of the Atlantic unless you deal with import permits and all that paperwork. I just might have to content myself with the YouTube insect porn.
Ooh baby.
December 08 2008 05:13 am | Categories: gardening • plant profiles | Tags: Ophrys • orchids • Tacca
Jenny on 08 Dec 2008 at 5:53 pm #
OMG. I didn’t realize I’d sent you so many “I want, I want, I want” e-mails. Plants are seductive, though. And, I haven’t even revealed the depth of my hosta addiction.
lostlandscape on 08 Dec 2008 at 9:05 pm #
There have been signs of the hosta thing, Jenny. We plant addicts aren’t as good at hiding it as we think. A stray leaf here, a plant catalog left up on the screen another time…