Tropicals & Tender Perennials: H rhodostele, 1 by upanatemat3am

upanatemat3am wrote:
Hey folks;
I doubt if this will solve anything, but I did find a photo of the flowers that bloom on the plant I purchased from someone.about 15 years ago as IML-557. I can't even remember now who it was, It may have even been David Liddle. I was buying many plants from him around that time. This is certainly not the one that David has listed in his catalog as H. aff. rhodestele, but then he never said it was. The affinis (aff) on a plant label just means similar to, or in a like manner. What I see in half of the confusion in trying to identify these plants, is that too much emphasis is being placed on the leaves. I know from personal experience in growing these things under my conditions that the leaves can look entirely different in a matter of months than when they were first acquired. They can get much greener or a lot paler in color depending on the light available. They can get smaller or much larger, depending on the amount of water, light and humidity. They can get thinner or much thicker, also depending on the light water and humidity. The only thing that doesn't change is the vein pattern and the sap that they exude. If they start in with clear sap as opposed to milky sap, they will have clear sap until their dying day. If they start in with palmate veins as opposed to pinnate veins, they will remain with palmate veins. Those characteristics are set in stone, they don't change.
Annie W.