("Michelle" x "Zara") x aff besseae "Elvis"

(Michelle x Zara) x aff besseae "Elvis"

The seed parent is the inverse of the more widely traded of Dr. Block's earlier mass-releases, and I found it at a roadside nursery off Krome Ave, summer 2023, wedged in among the orchids and platycerium like nobody wanted it there. It still wore the old 'Nurturing Nature' tag, the one with the now-defunct QR code, from before everything got colorized and branded the way the tags are today. A cast-off, basically, from the generic Doc Block era of the mid-COVID plant craze - the kind of plant nobody was fighting over at the time.

Which is a shame, because it's stunning. Deep red-pink emergents, veination that earns a second look, and both of those traits trace back to Tim Anderson's 'Wonder Boy' sitting somewhere behind it as the likely selfed parent of both the seed and pollen donors used to make it. I crossed it onto aff besseae "Elvis" and we'll see what comes of it.