Anthurium ("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara") x "Ketchup Socks"

("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara") x "Ketchup Socks"

The seed parent is a plant I overpaid for at the IAS Show & Sale, September 2023, off the Doctor Jeffrey Block table, and it spent a full year sulking as a runt before I babied it into behaving. Worth it. It's a proper mother plant now, throwing emergent leaves anywhere from soft pink-brown to arterial-wound red depending on how the temperature and light are feeling that week, and it's already lent itself to a few other hybrids kicking around the greenhouse.

The pollen parent is "Ketchup Socks," a name it earned from MalMal, who had the courage to commit a live-sale joke to a permanent tag. Bred by Phil Iloo from (red crystal x magnificum) x ("Greige" x red crystal), it pushes wonderfully red emergent leaves that hold their anthocyanin deep in the venation long after the leaf hardens off, and it grows bushier than most of the red crystal lineage plants I keep, which makes pulling offsets a much less fraught affair.

Put the two together and you get a seedling with a mother known for mood-ring emergent color and a father built for red that lingers. I'm curious which trait wins out.