I thought the flowers in yesterday's post were all I had to show off.  Today I discovered this on my Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora).  It's less than a half inch (12mm) across and very fragile.  That's a second flower bud center left.

Scientists who study the human eye say we can't perceive both red and green at the same time.  They say the cones that determine color in the eye see red and green on the same sliding scale.  So if the eye sees red, it sees "not green" at the same time.  If it sees green, it sees "not red".  Both together are supposed to result in a muddy brown.  Yet I see both red and green mixed together in young Surinam Cherry leaves.  How about you?  Is the young leaf both red and green or just brown to you?  Maybe the colors don't translate well onto the computer screen....

I don't allow insects (other than a few spiders) to survive very long in my sunroom.  I don't see many (any) pollinators left.  If anyone has a suggestion on how to hand pollinate these flowers, please post.  I'm going to try using a cotton swab on this one.  Wish me luck.

I raised this plant from the only healthy Surinam Cherry seed I found in Hawaii, well up in the western mountains of Maui.  There are both red-fruited and black-fruited cultivars.  The reds are supposed to be more tart, the blacks more sweet.  This came from a red fruit, but that's all I know.

If you want to bring seeds from Hawaii to the mainland, you need a box that can be taped shut, a roll of tape, and I'd suggest, plastic bags.  Gently scrub all the fruit/pulp off your seeds and let them dry.  Make sure no bugs or worms have bored into your seeds.  Put your seeds in the plastic bags and seal them.  Write on the bag the species of plant seeds it contains.  Before you fly home, drop by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture office to have them inspected.  It's cost free.  They will inspect your seeds, put them in the box, seal it, and put their official stamp on the outside. 

Once it's inspected, you can either mail it home or take it with you.  If you mail it, consider the temperature of the places it must travel to the destination.  Many tropical seeds can't stand cold, much less frost.  If you take the box with you, you will have to present the box separately at the airport to have it X-rayed.  (Most of my seeds survived the trip through the nuclear chamber just fine.)  Keep the box sealed until you get home.

If you want to bring home live plants, the easiest way is to buy them from a licensed greenhouse and arrange to have them shipped home after you fly out.  The second easiest is to buy one of the pre-packaged, pre-inspected plants from one of the many kiosks on every island (well, every island we visited, anyway).  These get X-rayed at the airport, too.  Leave them sealed in the plastic with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture stamp intact until you get home.

2013 Winter update

My Hawaiian Ti has bloomed again. I keep pouring coffee on it and it keeps blooming. I think there is a relationship here.

This is my Kahili Ginger (Hedychium gardnerainum) going to seed.

Here's a close-up of that lower stalk showing the pods in detail.

Latest Surinam Cherry leaves

This is my Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora).  Similar to my Cinnamon, below, its leaves start growing as bright red and the green chlorophyll develops later.  Unlike the Cinnamon, Surinam Cherry grows continuously, not in sudden flushes.  This growth spurt is unusual.

Here is a wide view of the Surinam Cherry on the left and the Cinnamon on the right.  The earlier bright red leaves on the Cinnamon have all turned lime green.  There are very few leaves with any red remaining.  The Surinam Cherry has several growing stems, all with a few red leaves.  Any stem with active growth will always have some red leaves.

The Weather Channel has predicted overnight low temperatures in the upper 30 degree F. range early next week.  This means I need to bring in my most cold sensitive plants before Sunday.  I've already brought in seven of the largest plants.  I sure am glad I mounted them on three inch casters!

[EDIT:] Oops! Somehow I mislabeled my Surinam Cherry as an Acerola. I have corrected my mistake above.

I had to show off the latest flush of growth on my Cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum verum).






It has also flowered for the first time, but you can barely see the flower. It is tiny, white, and superimposed over the yellow leaf in the center of the photo.

Still Here....

Welcome back to my jungle.  These photos were taken November, 2011, a couple of months after I brought my tropical plants in for the winter.  These purplish-red flowers are from a 'Sharry Baby' Oncidium orchid.  They are fragrant and last for weeks.  I plant my orchids in hanging baskets with coco liners.  For arboreal (tree dwelling) orchids, I use a commercial orchid mix.  It's mostly bark, but it includes charcoal, perlite, and peat moss.  It's OK to water them frequently because most of the water runs right out of the bottom.  I spray the leaves with a water soluble orchid fertilizer mixed at half the strength listed in the directions on the bottle.

This is a Blue Ginger (Dichorisandra thyrsiflora).  Although I bought this in Hawaii, it is actually native to Brazil.  It likes a shady moist spot, however I use regular Miracle-Gro potting mix.  The moisture control mix holds too much water and breaks down much faster than the original stuff.  (After the built-in fertilizer runs out, I use strictly organic fertilizers.)  The Ginger came as a finger-sized piece of stem in a plastic bag bearing the Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture inspection stamp.  It takes a couple of years for that stem to grow flowers like these.  It spreads from the roots, so it could become invasive in areas without frost.  I'm going to plant some in zone 9 and see if it makes it through the winter.

This is a double Hibiscus.  I don't know the name of the variety.  I suspect this is a hybrid between a tropical Hibiscus and a temperate species.  While the flowers are beautiful, the problem with Hibiscus in the sunroom is aphids.  Aphids LOVE Hibiscus leaves and will suck them dry if you allow it.  Insecticidal soap only slows the bugs down a little--it does not eradicate the problem.

This is a close-up view of my T.R. Hovey Papaya (Carica papaya).  As you can see, this one sheds most of its flower buds.  However, if the flower develops, it is very likely to grow into a fruit.  The petals don't really spread apart any more than this.  They simply dry up and fall off.  I thought I had some recent pictures of the fruit on my camera, but I'll have to upload them to a different post.  The fruit becomes a much darker green as it grows.  I've got it planted in a 24 inch diameter half-whisky-barrel liner filled with--you guessed it--original Miracle-Gro potting mix.

In advertising pictures, TR Hovey Papaya are always heavily laden with fruit.  I may be getting less fruit because of the cool temperatures in my sunroom over the winter, the unavoidable partial shade, or my lower frequency of watering when plants are dormant. 

Did you know Papaya are distantly related to Cabbage?

This is Hawaiian Ti (Cordyline fruticosa) in flower.  This is only the second time I've ever seen these flowers.  The first time I saw them, I asked the owners how they  got flowers.  They advised pouring cold coffee on it instead of water.  I followed this advice and got flowers.  Amazing!

The Native Hawaiians used Ti leaves to wrap food for cooking the same way the Aztecs wrapped tamales in corn husks.  Many Cordylines with highly colored foliage are readily available in garden centers across the USA.  They come in various shades of red and purple, sometimes mixed with green.

All you need to propagate Ti is a thumb-sized cutting of stem.  Plant the stem mostly covered in potting mix.  Keep moist, but not soggy.  It takes a while, but the stem will root and sprout a stem with leaves.  The more green there is in the leaves, the more vigorous the plant will be.

I bought 100 Kona Coffee (Coffea arabica) seedlings and the seeds from one Cocoa Bean Pod (Theobroma cacao) from a vendor on the Big Island.  The Chocolate saplings on the right and the Coffee saplings on the left are the result.  These are among my most tropical plants since they die at the first hint of frost.

Coffee is remarkably easy to grow and makes an excellent houseplant.  It grows slowly giving you plenty of time to prune it to size.  If you don't prune it, it will bump the ceiling--hey, it's a tree.  When you prune, remember only one-year-old branches make flowers and then beans.  It will grow in indirect sunlight, but you'll get more berries the more sunlight it gets.  That brings to mind the second caution:  Don't take your coffee plant directly from indoors to full sun.  The leaves will sunburn and it will take some time for the injured plant to replace the lost leaves.  If you introduce your Coffee to more sunlight gradually, the leaves will adapt and give you more flowers.

On the Coffee plants above, notice how the leaves grow in opposite pairs with the next pair of leaves growing at a 90 degree angle from the previous pair.

Here are three Coffee saplings, a Cola (Kola acuminata) sapling, and a piece of Pepper (Piper nigrum) vine.  What's weird about these Coffee seedlings is they have three leaves growing at each point on the stem rather than the two in the Coffee plants in the previous photo.

Over 10% of the Coffee sprouts I got had what appeared to be multiple cotyledons.  About 5% exhibited the three leaf pattern (not all 5% were part of the 10%).  Approximately half of these grew out of it and resumed the two leaf pattern.  Only these three plants have maintained the three leaf pattern including growing three branches.  (Each of these branches resumed the two-leaf pattern.)  I don't know if this leaf pattern is an indicator of a genetic problem or not.  Professional Coffee growers generally throw oddball plants away rather than risk investing time, water, fertilizer in a defective plant.  The three leaf pattern plants will grow much thicker than the others.  I'll let you know if they flower or make beans.

Flowers & Fruit

One of my pitcher plants has flowered. The petal color is unbelieveable; I wish this photo could do it justice. Unfortunately, these flowers droop so the insides are difficult to see.

I harvested one lemon for Thanksgiving but the other 18 are still attached. They are smaller than the one I took, but still larger than a golf ball. I heard a report on the news today about when the oranges get colder they get sweeter. I wonder if that holds true for Meyer Lemons?

This orange stalk holds the fruit of this Cataractarum palm. The berries are like olives--green when young, black when ripe. I doubt these are fit to eat, and they might even be poisonous.







These three young palm trees show a great deal of variety. The light green palm in the upper right is a Manilla palm, an Areca relative. The lower center palm is a Chusan palm, a fan palm. The palm in the upper left is a Pygmy Date, a pinate palm.

The first plants come inside today

My tea plant has flowered. There are quite a few flowers for such a small plant. Each flower lasts only a bit more than a day before the plant ejects it and it falls off.

My betel pepper has also flowered. One of the distinguishing characteristics of betel pepper is the flower stalks grow upward. Also notice the shiny leaves. I have high hopes my black pepper (pictured in an earlier post) will also flower someday.
This is a PJM Rhododendron. It's not tropical, but I thought I'd add a photo because it's blooming when it's not supposed to be. According to the tag, these bloom in spring--it flowered then, too. This is at least the second year this shrub has bloomed twice.

Speaking of distinguishing characteristics, the first sickle "leaves" have appeared on my tallest koa. These are not true leaves; the leaf stem widens and the true leaf parts stop developing. The true leaf parts on this leaf started to develop, then quit partway.
Cacao (chocolate) trees have a curious habit. At almost exactly four feet tall, the main stem splits into five main branches. I have two cacao trees; one has split into two main trunks. This is the shorter trunk, just now reaching four feet from soil level.
This is the other trunk of the same tree which is about 3 inches taller.
This is the second tree. It is approximately 5-1/2 feet tall. Here is its branch point.
Here is the top view of the second tree's branch point.
This is the latest "flush" of leaves on my cinnamon tree. Since this photo was taken, the overnight temperature dropped below 60 degrees. Some of the veins on these leaves got damaged. It comes inside tonight along with the clove tree and the nutmeg tree.

This is the Surinam cherry I raised from seed. It is not closely related to the cinnamon, but it sure has the same red foliage.

These are bug catchers on my Nepenthes. When I bought this, I was told it was an alata. Now, I'm not so sure. These bug catchers are more orange than spotted purple and they have two hair trails down the front.

This is a Sarracenia pitcher plant. While it too has bug catchers, they form along the main part of the leaf, not at the tip. Nepenthes and Sarracenia belong to the same Order, Ericales.

Another Sarracenia pitcher plant. Anything that eats bugs is a friend of mine.

These are my banana offspring. One was previously pictured in the April 2009 post, still attached to mama. They've grown quite a bit since then.

These are palm seedlings. To the left are year-old fan palms. To the right are six-month-old Manilla palms. The center row has pygmy date palms, but I don't know how old they are.