Anthurium radicans x dressleri, Anthurium radicans, Anthurium dressleri, Exotic Rainforest rare tropical plants

Anthurium radicans x dressleri

An interesting Anthurium Hybrid

We used to be regular visitors at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami. If you've never been, make it a point. It's worth a trip to Miami all by itself, especially in September when they host the International Aroid Society aroid show. But there is another botanic garden only a few hundred miles to the northwest you should also visit, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Tampa. Anthurium hybrids are known to be highly variable and not every leaf of every specimen will always appear the same. This link explains in greater detail the scientific principals of natural variation and morphogenesis. Click here.

My favorite exhibits were the orchids, bromeliads and large tropical atrium filled with rare plants, especially the Anthurium species. Against the back wall and adjacent to the indoor pool, was an Anthurium I was tempted more than once to "borrow". Never tried, so don't panic! The plant had no identification tag but once the plant in my photo became available I was almost certain that hybrid was Anthurium radicans, one of the parents of this hybrid. The leaves were large, crinkled, ruffled, rippled, quilted, stiff, textured and almost any other word commonly used to describe a really exotic Anthurium (to a botanist that leaf form is known as bullate). Several exquisite Anthurium sp. had been melded together to create a truly wonderful plant. But try as I could, I could never locate one just like it to bring home. Until one day on eBay! I discovered what appeared to be the plant at Fairchild I had wanted for so long. And it was cheap! $10!

Some research produced the fact the plant on eBay had been "cloned" (technically, that is tissue cultured) by a company in Central Florida. Well, sort of. Harry E. Luther, Director, Mulford B. Foster Bromeliad Identification Center and Curator of Living Collections at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Tampa, FL sent an email in September, 2007, letting me know the hybrid of Anthurium radicans x A. dressleri was hybridized at Selby in the late 1970s by Mike Madison. He and Mike Bush used the finicky A. dressleri for several hybrids. According to Harry, for several decades this was a rare plant. Today, the hybrid is available from many plant dealers. The original specimens are still growing at Selby.

As it would turn out, they plant at Fairchild was wasn't the exotic Anthurium I had craved so long! But it was very similar. The plant at Fairchild turned out to be Anthurium luxurians and is even more exquisite, we now have one in our collection. The hybrid combination offered on eBay, Anthurium radicans crossed with Anthurium dressleri, contains some of the best traits of both of those parent plants. And despite what the purists keep saying about clones being "inferior", my "clone" is almost as beautiful as the original plant I wanted so badly at Fairchild. So beautiful I bought two! But not quite as beautiful as A. luxurians in my opinion!

The hybrid variety of Anthurium radicans x A. dressleri has proven to be a sterile plant. It will not reproduce via seeds. However, it is easily grown as a cutting from the original plant. You can also locate information regarding Anthurium radicans, the species, on this website.

Aroid Pollination!
As it occurs in nature and by any horticulturist

Join the International Aroid Society: http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Join%20IAS.html

Need more information on Anthurium species? Click this link.