um...the spines of sanderiana?

Hohenbergia leopold-horstii x H. burle-marxii

Gonzer's got half of it right...but which half?

Hi Paul,

I only ask the questions, I don't answer them 'cause I don't know the answers!

All the best, Nev.

LH x Corriea araujei

well, that didn't take too long! minxie has it exactly correct. Congrats!
I got only a few seeds on the H. leopoldo-horstii. It didn't set going the other way. So far, the grex is pretty uniform as can be expected from a primary cross of 2 species. The specimens pictured are a couple of the larger ones so far. They're growing in 4" (10 cm.) pots, and they're about 7-8" tall. I'm guessing that they'll end up about 18-20" tall, and probably look just about as they appear now! As for the flowers...well, they're Hohenbergias.

Paul

Very nice plant Paul, it's got soul.

BTW Paul, you've got a nice web-site too.

Nice cross! Neat looking buggers. I wonder how crossing it back with either (or both in parallel) parent would turn out. Or I guess trying to do a self pollination. I love the hohenbergias.

Thanks for the feedback, Gonzer.
Andy, I guess my motivation for doing the cross was to see if I could get the 'correia-araujei' leaf color and markings, and lose the "leaf flop". So far, it looks like it's somewhat successful. If I were to try to go further with it, I'd probably want to see how much more of the 'correia-araujei' influence I could bring in (but still avoid the leaf flop). Judging by the difficulty of setting seed though, I suspect that it is probably a mule- as many Aechmea crosses are. I may be wrong on this, but it's likely that this is as far as this cross will go!

Paul

I'm actually kind of surprised the correia-araujoi influence came through as strong as it did, Paul. The only other cross I've ever seen with it is the one with Ae. chantinii, and that didn't come out nearly as nicely banded as you would expect with those two parents.

I like the form of this one, and it will be interesting to see if you can build on it, or if it will be a mule, as you suspect. I don't think anyone else is working with Hohenbergias, so the field is wide open! There is some potential there too, some of them even have colorful flowers. How about crossing c-a with stellata or rosea? A burle-marxii/rosea cross could be interesting too. Of course you'd need more space for that sort of thing.

I've always thought it would be cool to cross Hoh. correia-araujoi with Orth. gurkenii, but I wouldn't put any money on getting those two to take!