(Eastern dressleri x dressleri 'FP2') x ('Red Velvet Cake' x 'Zara')

(Eastern dressleri x dressleri "FP2") x (Red Velvet Cake x Zara)

This one pairs two plants that have already proven themselves useful around here. The seed parent is a dressleri lookalike from the good folks at Fontanimal Planthouse, picked up as a 2-leaf seedling at the IAS Expo in 2024. It's a hardier stand-in for the real thing, and it's been generous with seed batches since. The pollen parent is the same Red Velvet Cake x Zara that's floating around in a few other crosses in the greenhouse, a plant I paid too much for at the IAS Show & Sale back in September 2023 from the Doctor Jeffrey Block booth. It sulked as a runt for a year before it decided to become a mother plant worth the wait, throwing emergent leaves anywhere from soft pink-brown to arterial red depending on the mood of the season.

So this batch is really a bet on whether dressleri toughness and that temperamental emergent coloration can occupy the same seedling. Too early to say, but I like the parents enough to be optimistic.