Like I said, a bunch of these Aloe ferox are in bloom right now, and my Droid phone’s camera is getting a workout.

Enjoy!

Now that’s what I call a common name.

Rechsteineria leucotricha

We’ve trimmed back all the older leaves, and these caudiciforms are putting out new branches, leaves and buds like crazy. Here we see the touch of color in the buds that will soon be overtaking the plant with the large crown of tubular blooms. What’s not to like?

I’ve been taking these photos with my new Droid phone. Not as good as with the regular ole’ camera. I’ll try the camera too, and we can judge them side by side. Maybe tomorrow.

The flood subsided. We’re back and open again. But it is still raining.

Pelargonium tetragonum – not usually this leafy. Mostly a lot of sticks, with an occasional leaf. But they seem to like this new wetter winter.

Crassula “Moonglow” is one of the pagoda-like crassulas. I think it’s even more pagoda-like than C. “Pagoda”, but that’s just my opinion. This one is called Moonglow because at night, when the moon is out, it glows. Bright blue! And the moths like it, they flock to it like it was the moon, glowing. At night.

Interesting.

Espotoa lanata

This is the same plant below that is in bloom in January.

Echeveria agavoides Crested

There are a bunch of E. agavoides cultivars. Our favorite, and everyone elses as well, is what we call “Ebony” but others call “Lipstick”. I refuse to use that ridiculous name.

Anyway, this is not one of those. This is from another cultivar that has only a bit of the red tips. The form quick growing rosettes to about 12″ across.

I think I’ve seen these crested ones around in tiny pots for sale elsewhere, but we’ve grown them a bit bigger here, almost full clumps. They are pretty fast growing for a crest, and not as tight as some others, so it kind of looks like its own species with weird oblong rosettes.

Gasteria nigricans monstrose is a very nice specimen in the Aloe-Gasteria-Haworthia family. At first I thought it might be a hybrid, with that random pattern of leaves, maybe a Gasteraloe or a Gasterworthia. It turns out it is a monstrose of a regular fan-shaped gasteria. And it’s lost its spots. Now that’s something.

Plus, the store is back open after our very short, 1-week winter break. It’s getting shorter every year. Next year I think we’ll be down to 2 days off. Now that will be something.

So here’s wishing you a Happy new Year and a healthy 2010. Will you call it Two thousand ten or Twenty ten? Only time will tell.

Senecio rowleyanus

Small pots of this are pretty darn cute. Usually we only have them in large hanging pots, but so many people asked for smaller, we brought out some that we were growing, and they are kinda nice as is. Maybe I was just never partial to the long strands of string-opearls hanging off the edge of a pot. Mostly contained within a little swaure makes it even interesting.

I have a new Droid I got for Hanukkah and I’m very excited to be able to mobile blog.

Let’s see how a photo works on this new platform.

Agave attenuata in my front yard with rain drops

It’s the 5th in our series of Bird’s Nest Sansevierias. This one is special to me, because we have a few hundred of them growing, so please if you were thinking of buying one I’m absolutely sure that this is the one for you.

Sansevieria “Zeylanica”

This one should be called S. stupendousii or maybe S. “Happy Good Time”.

My favorite name for this would have been S. “Jingle Bells” if only I were the one who had named it. Oh well.

Our fourth and penultimate Bird’s Nest Sansevieria of the Day is named after Lawrence Olivier.

Sansevieria laurentii

Wow, that’s pretty.

I wonder how he got a plant named after Olivier? I think it should have been named after Lawrence Welk instead.

Sansevieria “Jade” is neither made of jade nor looks anything like a jade plant. And yet someone got away with this horrific naming of this beautiful plant. I wonder what they were thinking? I thin k they were thinking something along the lines of “Hey, how about ‘Jade’? Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

On the other hand, it is a beautiful specimen of the Bird’s Nest sansevierias as seen on TV.

Our second Bird’s Nest sansevieria we’re growing this year at the nursery.

Sansevieria “Gold Star” is a lot like the “Black Star” but gold instead of black. Actually, neither one is gold or black. I wonder how they got those names  then? I suspect it was a plot by Glenn Beck to sell more gold (and oil i.e. black gold?)

We are growing new Bird’s Nest sansevierias this year.

Here’s one of them.

Sansevieria “Black Star”

Agave americana v. marginata

New leaves on agaves are always the bestest evah. Those bright red tips, the classic shadowing, the unraveling of the leaves. You wish you could keep them looking like this forever, but it’s not to be. They grow up. Fortunately, they kp producing more new leaves, and more new red tips and more new shadows too.

Agave parryi v. parryi

We’ve been selling other subspecies of the Agave parryi for years, and let me tell you they are very popular. But now we have this one. And it is dangerous. Just look at those spiny edges, those red tips. I think it’s angry at me! I’m going to back away slowly. I better look behind me before backing up too much, you never know what you’re going to back into at the Jungle.

Sempervivum “Moss Rose”

This is a soft and fuzzy sempervivum that really captures the morning dew just so.

Euphorbia lactea crest “Ghost”

So many things going on here. First we have a crest, a process of fasciation, possibly caused by a virus, whereby the growing tip, the apical meristem, grows perpendicular to the stem rather than from a single point as normal.

Then we have the “ghosting” where by the plant has lost most of it’s chlorophyll, also probably through a virus. Now normally for a ghost plant to survive, myco-heterotrophy will provide the food needed as it takes advantage of a symbiotic relationship with certain fungi. However, in this particular case, this ghosted crest has not successfully developed it’s long-term relationship to the fungi to be able to comfortably rely on them enough, or at all. So off to the grafters we go.

And we see that this crest is in fact grafted onto another euphorbia which serves as the rootstock for this ghosted crested scion.

And all this just so that we may enjoy this stunning plant. Or for you, this photo.

It’s the soft and lovely blue-flowered Salvia chamaedryoides, perfect for a cold but sunny Sunday morning with bagels and cream cheese. Coffee helps too.

It’s the monkey plant, and it makes me want to sing a song.

Ruellia makoyana

The Monkey Plant Song

I long for the days of the monkey plant days
When the evenings are cooler than the days!

Oh I wish to belong in the monkey plant days
‘Cause my monkey plants love to play! All day!

In the monkey plant days there are gumdrops galore
And in monkey plant days there are no more chores

(All together now!)
Oh I wish to belong in the monkey plant days
‘Cause my monkey plants love to play! All day!

Do you have any verses to add to that?

Plectranthus “Mona Lavender”

We recently started carrying the various plectranthuses because they’re moderately drought tolerant in our climate, can handle light shade, and produce a lot of small orchid-like flowers.

They also make good hanging-basket houseplants. This is a very flexible plant. Why didn’t we think of it before?

It’s a hybrid that was cultivated in South Africa, at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It takes more water in South Africa than here, but if it’s indoor regular water is a must.

This Phalaenopsis is what we in the nursery business like to call “pretty.” Even the unopened buds at the top of the bloom spike are pretty. Someone should figure out a way to reproduce these pretty flowers.

Euphorbia tirucallii

Other common names include Pencil Cactus and Milk Tree.

Interesting thing about this plant. It seems that in the 7 years we’ve been open, I’ve never photographed it. Now I have. Good times.

I sent out our monthly email, with a new plant on it that is a fabulous caudiciform mesemb (if you know what I mean) and I got the name wrong. Now I wrote that I wasn’t sure of the name, but just one day later and I’m fully corrected.

Nananthus transvaalensis X Aloinopsis orpenii is the correct name, so you can see why I was able to get it so wrong. It looks a lot more like the Nananthus parent than the Aloinopsis parent, if you ask me.

Euphorbia flanaganii in full flower.

Tiny little buggers. Here’s a closeup.

So the story is we sell proteas at the nursery and they always sell before the blooms open. But finally we had one that was about to open, and it did! but it was very cloudy the last few days and today it’s all rain. But yesterday I had the good luck of about 5 minutes of sunshine, and so I got the picture.

Here it is, so you better enjoy it.

This is the shy and reserved picture.

Protea neriifolia “Pink Ice”

It’s a beautiful upright shrub, even when not flowering. They are spectacular, but short-lived (10 years?).

And here’s the full glory picture.

…in the Burseraceae family

Bursera morelensis

Endemic to the hills of Guanajuato, Mexico, this rare Bursera is rarely offered for sale, but is being studied for medicinal purposes.

Other Bursera species are grown for their fragrant sap (frankincense) and used as incense in religious rituals. Others are harvested for a resin known as copal.

So it’s not a surprise that there are properties to the Bursera.

Here we have a study of parthenocarpy in the plant. What they discovered is that this plant will sometimes produce fruit without seeds – and will even change the structure of the fruit when it does so. They theorize this is to trick predatory insects into attacking the parthenocarpic fruits (seedless) and leave the seeded fruits alone. Wow!

And here we have a study of the sap for medical uses. I do not understand the abstract, so I cannot tell you anything about it at all.

Science!

In the meantime, they are a most amazing and beautiful plant, and we received some plants that were being studied by a Bursera botanist for us to propagate.