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Subject: not an aroid question
Author: PC :lkallus@earthlink.net at INTERNET
Date: 1/16/97 12:08 PM
I'm going to be obnoxious and ask a non-aroid question here. I apologize
but am going to be asking everywhere till I track down the info.
While I was in Miami last week, I went to a nursery. There, I found a
plant that I hadn't seen before. I bought 3 rooted cuttings of it. The
owner called it a Mandanella.
No, it's not a Mandevilla. I have several of those, know they used to be
called Dipladenia and recognize them a mile away.
I dragged out my copy of the Exotica to try to describe the plant. This is
tougher than I thought.
It has smooth edged (entire) elliptic shaped leaves that are arranged in an
opposite pattern. The leaves are thick, have pinnate venation (although
you can't see the sub-branches as shown in the Exotica). The leaf
attachment is halfway between stalked and sessile though closer to sessile.
The flowers are in my memory only and I haven't seen it for 5 days. What I
recall, though, reminded me of some bromeliad flowers I've seen. I looked
through the exotica, can't find the exact one it reminded me of, but the
closest I can come is Aechmea gracilis. The mass of flowers was perhaps
4-5 inches long and 1 inch wide. They looked like pink match heads with
blue tips. (...or was it blue matchheads with pink tips? No, I think the
former.)
So with this kind of a vague description, can anyone help? (I feel like
some of the people I know who ask about a plant they have at home. "It's
big and has pretty red flowers.")
I apologize for diverting attention from aroids.
Les
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