Anthurium [(SKG dressleri x magnificum) x papillilaminum Ft Sherman] x carlablackiae "Tropicarla"

(SKG dressleri x magnificum) x papillilaminum Ft Sherman] x carlablackiae "Tropicarla"

The seed parent here is one of my favorite pap crosses in the greenhouse, and it comes with a story I'll keep telling until someone stops me. I bought it from Bill during my first ever trip to Silver Krome Gardens, right on the heels of the most recent IAS Show & Sale. He was exhausted. I was, by any reasonable measure, bothering him. He still drove me around his greenhouses while I shopped like a giddy kid let loose in a candy store, and an adult tried, valiantly, to get back to adult things. I paid him for the privilege, so we're square. Thanks, Bill.

That seed parent is what's sometimes called "Velvet Giant," and the name earns its keep. Crossed with pap Ft Sherman, it throws a maroon-brown emergent that diffuses into a green-brown leaf, velvety in a way that photographs never quite capture. It's also a big plant, full stop.

The pollen parent, A. carlablackiae "Tropicarla," has its own small scandal attached. I bought it from an Ecuadorian nursery blowing out stock at the end of a show, under the claim it was seed grown. Once home and properly inspected, it was clearly divided at the stem instead, though not enough evidence to make a real accusation, just enough to keep me a little suspicious of that table forever after. I keep several flowering-size carlablackiae around and try to tell them apart when I can, which is how this one got its name. I was in the greenhouse one night listening to a Rays broadcast, the announcer kept mentioning Tropicana Field, and it clicked. Tropicarla. I said "eureka" out loud, alone, like an idiot. Might be my best name yet.

Put those two together and you get this seedling, a much more intelligible statement than anything I've written above. Enjoy it, and whatever it decides to make of itself.