("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara") x "Ketchup Socks"

("Red Velvet Cake" x "Zara") x "Ketchup Socks"

The seed parent cost me more than it should have, snagged at the IAS Show & Sale in September 2023 from the Doctor Jeffrey Block booth, and then proceeded to sulk as a runt for a full year before finally deciding to be a plant. Now it's a proper mother, throwing emergent leaves that swing from soft pink-brown to something closer to an arterial-wound red depending on the day's temperature and light, and it's quietly fathered (mothered?) a few other hybrids around the greenhouse already.

The pollen parent, "Ketchup Socks," owes its name to MalMal's willingness to commit to a bit made during a live sale, which I respect enormously. Behind the silly name is a cross of (red crystal x magnificum) x ("Greige" x red crystal), bred by Phil Iloo, and it earns its keep visually - the emergent leaves come in properly red, with anthocyanin lingering in the venation well after the leaf has hardened off. It also grows bushier than most of the red crystal lineage I keep, which makes pulling offsets far less of an ordeal.

Put the two together and you get a cross with a name almost as good as the plant behind it.