Anthurium magnificum "Mickey" x carlablackiae "Tropicarla"

Anthurium magnificum "Mickey" x carlablackiae "Tropicarla"

The seed parent has a pedigree longer than most people's family trees. This is a clone of a plant wild-harvested something like 80 years ago, grown for years in the foyer of a Miami orchid nursery by Mickey Carmichael, a prominent grower in that scene for decades. Enid Offolter of NSE Tropicals saw it about 20 years ago, when it was already thought to be at least 60 years old, and left with a cutting. Enid eventually donated a piece of her own enormous clone to the International Aroid Society's Annual Member Dinner and Auction, where I got into a bidding war over it and, thankfully, came out on top. A. magnificum is thought to be a complex of 20 or more subspecies or ecotypes, plenty of which circulate under names like "Norte" or "Silver," but I'll admit a soft spot for Mickey.

The pollen parent has a much less dignified origin. I bought it off an Ecuadorian nursery at the tail end of a plant show, where they were selling it as seed grown - it was not, evidenced by the divided stem once I got it home and had a proper look. Not enough there to call it wild collected either, just enough to make me suspicious. I keep several flowering-size carlablackiae in the greenhouse and try to tell them apart where I can, and this one got its name from a Tampa Bay Rays broadcast, when the announcer mentioned Tropicana Field one too many times and something clicked. Tropicarla. Possibly my best naming work to date.

Whatever comes of crossing pedigree with suspicion, I'm curious to see it.