carlablackiae "Tropicarla" x magnificum "Norte"

carlablackiae "Tropicarla" x magnificum "Norte"

Tropicarla is fun to say, yea? I bought the seed parent off an Ecuadorian nursery at the tail end of a plant show, sold to me as seed grown, which it very much was not - divided at the stem, plain as day once I got it home. Not enough there to call it wild collected, but I stayed suspicious anyway. I've got a few flowering-size carlablackiae in the greenhouse now and try to tell them apart when I can, and this one got its name off a Tampa Bay Rays broadcast, of all things - the announcer kept mentioning Tropicana Field and something clicked. Eureka, I said, like an idiot. Tropicarla. Might be my best name yet.

The pollen parent, magnificum "Norte", came to me from Scott Cohen as a seed-grown baby. Its venation forks close to the margin rather than staying boxed in by a perimeter vein, a little different from other magnificum ecotypes I've grown - subspecies, maybe, if someone wants to sort that out. The inflorescence smells like menthol and moth balls, which I'm told is reminiscent of something, though I can never place what.

This seedling is a more intelligible expression of everything I just tried to explain. Enjoy it.