Lately I have been noticing something odd about the Spathiphyllum in Lowe's. The leaf nearest the inflorescence will often be partially white whilst all other leaves are the normal green. In one particularly extreme case, the plant had one completely white leaf subtended by a tiny, perfect inflorescence.
Yesterday, I saw the same thing on one of those new mahogany-orange Zantedeschia cultivars: the plant had one perfect inflorescence, one inflorescence in which the spathe was open, exposing the entire spadix, and one leaf that was normal except for streaks of the spathe color. All other leaves were normal solid green.
I also noticed, however, that the pink-spathed Anthuriums in the same Lowe's store do not do this; they all had normal leaves and inflorescences, with no sign of intermediates. Is this phenomenon the result of something in the commercial production techniques, that affects only certain genera?
Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large |