("Michelle" x "Zara") x ("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara")

This one doubles down on Zara, which feels almost incestuous in a genus where everyone's already related to everyone else, but here we are.

The seed parent, Michelle x Zara, came from a roadside nursery off Krome Ave in Miami, summer 2023, tucked in among the orchids and platycerium like it had wandered off from somewhere important. It still wore its old 'Nurturing Nature' tag, QR code long dead, a relic of the generic Doc Block mid-COVID release era before the branding got fancy. Cast-off or not, the plant itself is stunning - deep red-pink emergents, real veination, all of it traceable back to Tim Anderson's 'Wonder Boy' sitting as the likely selfed parent behind both sides of that cross.

The pollen parent, Red Velvet Cake x Zara, cost me more than I want to admit at the IAS Show & Sale in September 2023, straight from Dr. Jeffrey Block's booth. It sulked as a runt for a year before finally deciding to grow, and now it's a full mother plant that changes its mind about what color to be depending on the light and the season - sometimes a soft pink-brown, sometimes something closer to an open wound. It's already lent itself to a few other crosses floating around the greenhouse, so this pairing felt inevitable rather than clever.