Anthurium ("Michelle" x "Zara") x 'Amy'

(Michelle x Zara) x Amy

The seed parent is the one nobody was chasing - the inverse pairing of Dr. Block's more widely traded early release, found at a roadside nursery off Krome Ave in Miami, summer 2023, tucked in among the orchids and platycerium like an afterthought. It still wore the old 'Nurturing Nature' tag, QR code long dead, from before everything got colorized and branded - a cast-off from the generic mid-COVID 'Doc Block' era that nobody bothered to relabel. And yet the plant itself is a stunner, throwing deep red-pink emergents and gorgeous veination, all traceable back to Tim Anderson's 'Wonder Boy' sitting likely-selfed on both sides of its creation.

The pollen parent is 'Amy', named for my mom, and proof that you shouldn't write off a plant just because its parents didn't turn heads. Both sides of her lineage - (crystallinum x magnificum) x (magnificum x nigrolaminum "Gigi") - are perfectly nice, perfectly forgettable plants on their own. Amy wasn't. Strong primary venation against a dark green lamina, distinctly undulate margins, good enough that I submitted her to the IAS Cultivar Committee myself and they agreed. I picked her out as a seedling for exactly those traits, long before she looked like much of anything.

So this cross is really a bet on the quiet ones - an overlooked hybrid crossed onto a cultivar nobody would've picked out of a lineup as a baby. We'll see which parent wins the argument.