Anthurium "Justin" x ("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara")

"Justin" x ("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara")

Justin is doing what Justin does best here, which is throw its subvelvet character into yet another unsuspecting cross. I picked up the plant itself from Tezula back in summer of 2022, bred by a different Justin down in Tampa who'd left seed at SKG - I bought it mostly for the name, honestly, but it's since turned into one of the most prolific parents on my bench. Fifteen-plus unique hybrids in, and counting. The actual makeup, for those keeping track, is (crystallinum x magnificum) x subsignatum, so there's some real density behind the leaf texture you tend to see coming out of it.

The pollen parent I paid too much for at the IAS Show & Sale in September 2023, off the Doctor Jeffrey Block table. It sulked as a runt for a year before rewarding my patience and turning into a proper mother plant, one that shifts its emergent color between a soft pink-brown and something closer to an arterial red depending on the conditions. It's already made its way into a few other crosses floating around the greenhouse, and now it's Justin's turn to see what it can do with that inconsistency. Early days yet, but I like the parents enough to be optimistic.