Do you enjoy Plant Debty podcast. Do you find yourself listening to us going
on and on about plants after more than one hundred episodes, then consider supporting
us on Patreon, where official patrons get access to our show ad free with
a little bonus after show that we started recently as well, or you could
just fund us a cup of coffee to keep the plantytalk coming, or tell
a friend or leave a positive review, and as always, thank you for
listening and supporting us in any way that works for you. And we're a
live This is Plant Debty podcast. I'm Matthew and I'm Stephen. Are you
bored of spider plants but don't need anything too too different? Do you like
the color of cantalo? Yeah? Have you ever wanted to grow a plant
that looks like an orange dream circle? Hasta indoors. We're serious, it's
pretty darn unique. If the answers yes, maybe or what, then we
have a plant for you. Yeah. So this is one that we've both
been interested in trying since episode one twelve when we discussed spider plants and we
mentioned this one as a relative worth looking into. I then found it for
sale at Miles's shops shortly thereafter and bought us four inch starter plants, which
were then part of our holiday plants swap in episode one twenty Yes, and
we were both excited about these emphasized on both and were did the plant live
up to the hype or well our hype? Anyway, the day is finally
here when all these questions will be answered answered echo. So Stephen and I
are both dedicated plant daddies who don't mind the look of grow lights indoors.
That's right, It's for the plants. They need that light. But you
know, not everyone feels that way. I know other plant parents who are
very reluctant about the look of artificial light. And I even heard your own
husband complain about how the grow lights in your last apartment gave him a headache.
Okay, I'm so glad you remember that and brought him up. Brian,
come toll, Stephen, what you're telling our friends about my new Soultech
pendant light? Oh hi, Stephen, Hey, Okay, be honest.
What do you think about the Soultech plant light. I can't believe how unobtrusive
it is. Matthew hung it right next to a chair. I'd like to
read in and I thought for sure that i'd hate it, But it's just
pleasant indoor lighting, like the light from a normal light fixture that a normal
person would have in a normal home. It's so much better than the girl
lights in his office. That room still gives me a headache. Well,
there you go. He wasn't paid or course to say this, I promise.
Yeah, that is an unvarnished reaction from a long suffering spouse of well,
you all know a very enthusiastic plant parent. Let's call it. So.
Let's add this to the list of reasons we're excited to offer our listeners
fifteen percent off Soultech products with Code Plant Debty podcast and as always, you
can count on a high quality lights, great customer service, free shipping,
a five year warranty and more. Checkout soultech Solutions dot com and don't forget
Code Plant Debty Podcast at checkout to get fifteen percent off your order. Okay,
what is it and why is it interesting? Well, today we're talking
about a plant whose Latin name is bizarrely unclear, but it goes by common
names that include mandarin plant, fireflash plant, or spider plant, Sierra leone,
lily, and chlorophyed Um mandroide rickey. So whether it's properly identified as
clorified Um amaniensis or chlorified um orchandastrum or chlorophyedum orchidanthroid is this plant and the
spider plant are the only members of their genus that are grown as houseplants,
at least of which I am aware that is a lot of names. Some
of those are cool. I will admit that part of the appeal to me
was the spider plant relationship. The color this one is pretty interesting, and
if it's even distantly related, it has to be easy to cultivate, right,
you know, So if it's a spider plant cousin, how similar is
it to spider plant? Well, before we get into the similarities of care,
if you look at the Sierra Leone lily as a botanist, I guess
you'll notice that it's a monocote, so grassy parallel veins like the spider plant,
and it has a similarly fleshy, kind of crisply tender texture to its
foliage that grows in world rosettes. And it also has really thick, fleshy
white roots with kind of tuberous appendages. But while The spider plant has long,
thin, narrow leaves, typically striped with white or different shades of green.
The manarin plant has broader foliage. It's more evenly medium green, but
with strikingly contrasting petioles. They're like a vivid creamsicle cantalope orange. They extend
with the mid vein into the leaf blade from the crown of the plant.
It's truly an amazing color that I don't think I can think of a single
other plant that really has this. So they grow indoors, and it's truly
what sets it apart from all other plants that have this kind of like general
shape and form to them. It just in very generic shades of green and
as a fairly wide distribution throughout the tropical regions of Central Africa. Okay,
And that took a little while for us to find out what we feel relatively
confident now, I think, right, yeah, I've seen Tanzania and Sarah
leone specifically mentioned, but you saw somewhere in Southeast Asia, which I do
not think is true at all. But one of the fun things that I
learned about this is that it's apparently only been in the United States plant trade
since the nineteen nineties, So you could grow this with your zz plant for
a little nod to newly introduce plants of the same era if you wanted,
Yeah, that would be a crickets moment. I would love to see that
though. If any wants to try that hard, yeah, you could do
it next year. Radiator that has a little humidity tray with pepperumia on it
if you remember a string Trails episode. Right, Okay, so what are
the ideal recommended growing conditions for the mandarin plants coming back down to Earth?
So let's start this off by saying that compared to spider plants, it's more
picky, which isn't tough, But I wouldn't classify this as difficult really either.
Maybe I can't quite decide yet. Actually yeah, And you know,
honestly, I think you might be tough on it because to me, the
mandarin plant has basically just needed occasional water on a suitable window sill. And
you're making me suspect that maybe you just don't really know what it's like to
grow a spider plant, and you assume it's just a set it and forget
it plant, which they're hardy, but not really that hardy, But I
do think that you're slightly onto something here. What did you read about them
when you were getting started? So looking online, I saw a filtered light
recommended, with consistent suggestions that lower light is okay for this plant, or
maybe even better for it. Yeah, it's often cautioned not to put this
plant in direct sun at all, and I bet that you could get away
with some morning sun. But a lot of people see that their plants get
gnarly looking if they're actually grown with very much some right, Okay. I
saw a well draining soil too, to the surprise of probably no one yep.
But typical indoor potting mix is probably perfectly fine if you're not a soil
amender, so easy there as well. Even if you are, it might
not be worth it. Yeah, I didn't with mine. I'll kind of
get into that later. As far as watering, these don't sound super picky
from the online care infoe, I saw it said that they weren't sensitive to
drag out, which is nice, and probably distilled water or rain water should
be used as these are more sensitive to fluoride. I may complain more about
that in detail later as well. Overall, all of this makes it sound
like this is a solid indoor foliage plant choice. But did our experiences match?
Yeah, so let's talk about what our approaches work for this plant and
how successful we found them. So I had mixed results. It's gone better
for you, I think, though, right, Matthew, Yeah, you
know, no shade, but I think that my mandarin plant looks significantly nicer
than yours. Thank god. Though. Yeah, I don't really think that
you've been neglectful or mistreated yours in anyway. So maybe we can compare notes
and come up with some theories about what's going on for our individual plants,
because it might just be luck. Okay, yeah, we'll see. Yeah,
so just give the rundown of what I've done for mine. I brought
both of our plants and for Miles's shop at the end of twenty twenty one.
I put them on a medium light shelf of microax for a few weeks,
just kind of acclimate to my home. I wanted to monitor them a
bit, just to see if I know just anything particular about their water or
their light needs. But they didn't really seem to have any adjustment issues,
and they were both the same size and four inch pots. They both looked
pretty much equivalent, so when it came down for a plant swap, I
just randomly picked one out for you and then put mine in a destination that
I figured would kind of be more or less permanent. That ended up being
on an east facing window sill of my downstairs bathroom, and the windows are
actually frosted glass, so it diffuses the light and it probably makes it more
equivalent to a north window. Okay, that's kind of how I treat it
anyway, And I just stuck the nursery pot in a cash pot for aesthetics
until I got around to repotting it. But since then I have just watered
it as I remember, or if it starts to look a little droopy,
it doesn't do that thing where the leaves kind of get pale like a spider
plant does. Okay, so sometimes it does dry out actually quite a bit,
and sometimes fully, but it really doesn't seem to have been too bothered
by this, and I think that it does have fairly consistent temperatures that dip
at night. The humidity is pretty moderate, between like forty to sixty percent.
There's no hot or cool drafts, so it's a great location for ferns
for context, okay, And is the color scheme in there already orange or
actually it's like a kind of mint green, like a vintage jade color.
So the orange, it's kind of a nice contrast. I can see that
kind of working. Okay, Yeah, I actually like it. That was
a joke, but I was thinking that I might need to get a shower
curtain that kind of like brings more warm orange, pink coral hues and to
make that plant make more sense les design around the plants. Okay, I
don't know if this plant's going to live long enough for me to make that
commitment, but stop spoiling. Yep, here we go. Okay, So,
like I said, I left it in the nursery pot because I intended
to repot it eventually. But then it began to grow a flower stock and
it stopped growing leaves entirely. And and even though the individual flowers are benign,
if not cute, the flower stock itself is like weirdly unattractive. Yeah.
Yeah. The pale yellowish orange blossoms are star shaped. They're similar to
a spider plant, but they're held on a stout spike that's kind of the
same sherbet orange color as the petioles, and each flower only lasts like a
day or so, but then numerous ones open in sequence, starting at the
base tucked really tight between the worlds of foliage, and then as the blooms
fade, three angled seed capsules begin to develop for most of the flowers,
which also begin in that kind of creamy orange color. But as they mature,
the bracts and the flowers that didn't end up turning into seed pods turn
black, and the pods themselves grow in size. They take on a kind
of greenish hue. They're slightly translucent actually, so you can actually see the
seeds developing inside, which is kind of cool, but ultimately the spike is
kind of like this wretched accessor on the plant. Yeah, so I'll cover
what I read about growing them from seed in the botanical corner at the end
of the episode. But what I read did inspire me to let the seed
capsules mature on the plant, and this takes a surprising amount of time.
So mine started flowering at either the end of December or the first days of
January, and then just last week it's mid May. By now, the
first capsules dried out and began to open with ripe seeds. Okay, I'm
still waiting for that, actually, but I'll check. I don't look at
this one a ton lately. Yeah, it's taking a very long time.
Yeah, but you know, by now it's also started to grow new foliage
again from the original whirl that paused while flowering, And this is sort of
like shoving up against the ugly, drying out flower spike. But then I
also noticed that the second role is starting from the base of the flower stock
as well. So the original flower spike also put out a few more blooms
recently, like well after the last ones were done a few months ago,
and there seemed to be more seed capsules beginning to develop. So anyway,
it's producing a ton of seeds, and I'm going to harvest them, plant
them to germinate soon, and then remove the flower stock to let them other
plant just work on her foliage. At that point, I'm going to be
repotting it, and I think I'm gonna use a glazed claypot so it doesn't
dry too fast, and just use an unaugmented like light well draining mix that
retains moisture. I'm not going to overthink this at all, and then I'm
hoping that it just fills in the pot nicely after this, because they kind
of look a bit sad with just a single growth point, and the best
looking plants that I've seen in photos online are much more developed with several growths
that really give them a lush, brightly colored light. Hey, yeah,
I agree with a lot of that. Does it sound like I've been that
much more successful than you? Not terribly? Maybe you had like different feelings
as a result. Maybe that's what this is anyway, curiosity. I'll say
that I went into this assuming I would get spider plant levels of hardiness.
That probably didn't help. Like Matthew said, I haven't grown a spider plant
recently. I grew in childhood. I just have like an idea of spider
plants, and you know how easy they are, so I should own that
too. And I'll admit right away that's kind of a lot for any plant
to live up too. So I got the plant. I potted it up
in an off the shelf mix from a favorite local plant store, the Indoor
Sun Shop. So I'm already like putting it, you know, in soil
that I think is better I'm not like treating this poorly. YEA included slow
released fertilizer two in the soil at nearly the advised levels. That's a big
step for me. You added that yourself. Yes, I'm a good fertilizer
fearing still kind of carnivorous plant person me. I think that part went fine.
You know. I didn't overdo it, for sure. I think I
still kind of low balled it. Then I put it in a big east
facing window, but near a grow light too, so it was always getting
a bit of light, then sometimes a lot of light in the morning.
It probably got some temperature swings near that window as I started this in winter
like you did, and it's now warming up. But again we're in Seattle,
so I think it's all relatively temperate. I planned to drench it weakly,
which is kind of a standard treatment in my house for what it's worth.
Like, I was just trying to fit it into the routines so it
got consistent attention, and I was pretty good about keeping up with that root
screw out of the bottom of the pot. Pretty quickly, everything seemed okay,
all right. Like Matthews, it flowered and grew seed pods, around
the same time as his, and I kept them thinking a seed growing experience
could be fun. There's a flush of new growth coming out now, kind
of off the side of that after quite arrest while the flowers and seed pods
were happening, and the new growth looks pretty nice actually no good. So
yeah, there's like the bare facts of this situation. But my plant just
does not look good. I have major browning tips issues, like inches of
browning leaf tips where it's basically leaving that definition and getting into half dead leaf
territory. Okay, like you saw my plant. Yeah, the flower and
seed experience, it really matches what Matthew said for me too. Sometimes I
find like interesting pieces or like a strange cuteness from things that Matthew doesn't right,
But that just was not the case for me here, Like I might
have actually found it cuter than you did. Maybe I really thought of cutting
these off often so the plant could just like focus on full age instead and
I kind of wouldn't have to look at it. The new growth does look
nice now, it's kind of going off to the side that you know,
juicy yet crisped up looking tower of seeds or whatever. It's like this homunculous
portion of the plant that you can't really hide. So, I mean the
new growth is great, Like does it make it all better? Not really.
You know, if you've heard this show before, you know me and
my relationship with leafy tropicals. I thought this plant would be like, you
know, a three day, all inclusive crews sort of experience, like you
know, just a little top of something. Yeah, and it's easy,
it doesn't take a lot of time, but it's just not very good looking.
I feel like I'm left with three or four potential issues driving that bad
look. I'm not terribly motivated to figure it out. I guess, so
where you know and rant, But there, you know, there's the truth.
We're going to have to have an update after like it has maybe recovered
from its seed growing experience. Maybe maybe not. Maybe they'll impress us.
So, um, let's get to the challenges, because I don't know,
it's maybe a mixed bag here. Yeah, so to the surprise him,
no one, I probably have more of these than you this time. Challenges.
Yeah, but honestly, I don't really know why. I don't think
that I'm doing anything that's uniquely different or in any way better. So I'm
taking this as an indicator that results might be pretty mixed for this plant.
I saw it kind of rated as easy to moderate on a few different websites.
Okay, so it just doesn't seem like you're doing anything clearly wrong.
And I think our plants came from the exact same greenhouse, grown side by
side, imagine, So I don't know. Yeah, So okay again,
browning leaf tips. That was a huge part of this experience for me.
Like we said in the spider Plant episode, perhaps this was caused by fluoride
in the tap water I was using. And fine, I sort of knew
that could affect this, but like, really, I need to buy distilled
water for this plant. I just don't think this plant is worth it because
I don't either. Yeah, if you want my opinion, it's seldom worth
it to have a fairly generic foliage plant that just can't live with the water
that comes out of your tap, at least when you're lucky enough to have
the high quality water that we have in the Pacific Northwest, even though we
were suspecting that living blocks apart, I had first water quality than you did
for carnivorous plants. But it's never been an issue for you. Exactly.
We have pretty pure water here in Seattle, at least for a major American
city, and I don't even have to get distilled water from my carnivorous plants
here. Usually they're a lot more sensitive exactly. So yeah, it feels
a little rude to me that I would have to do that for this one.
And I feel okay like calling this a challenge for this plant. I
mean, maybe it's more of a challenge for me than people generally. You
know, I know a lot of people who use rainwater more than I do.
I'll own that. I guess I'm wondering how much of the leaf damage
was just from general like light and temperature and humidity chaos on my window cells
too. It's an east facing window, like I said, so it's not
the most brutal window experience here or something, but it's an old building with
vintage windows that aren't very insulated. I had just moved in, so,
you know, I guess it was kind of a canary maybe in a coal
mine. I don't know. Yeah, but again, you're literally just giving
it solid conditions that aren't terribly different from what a lot of plant parents.
I like you to offer this plant. I have other plants in the window
cell. They're fine. So yeah, it's a space that many other plants
would be perfectly happy. And I think like in terms of its cohort of
general foliage plants, it shouldn't be that much different. Yes, I mean,
you know there's that radiant heat source nearby. I wonder if this got
beat up by direct morning lights, maybe like leaves touching the cold window and
humidity swings from them. You've not even had this plant when we've been hotter
than seventy five degrees. I mean, yeah, I don't know, Like
I'm searching. Like I said, I was like, well, it could
be three or four things that you know, would be kind of difficult to
correct. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, all of this
is coming just as I was starting to trust windows for plant growing. Okay,
let this one ruin. I'm right back to thinking a grow light would
have been better. I feel myself making that mikhaila Moroni face right now.
Yeah. Well, black patches and leaf edges are a pretty common complaint about
this plant online. To feel a little better, I was reading some you
know, just kind of internet forums, and specifically this was mentioned a lot
on Dave's gardens, and people just regularly site poor water quality and fluoride as
the reason. Or in particular makes sense because that's also a common culporate with
other plants, including the spider plant for your blackening leaf margins. But also,
this doesn't seem like a plant that only tolerates low light while it significantly
prefers brighter conditions. Based on pictures of these plants that are grown in pretty
low light for a long period of time, they don't seem negatively impacted by
that. They maintain great color and fullness, they're not lanky and stretched,
and it's also pretty commonly noted that too much light will stunt their growth and
burn the leaves and diminish the color. So this might be a really good
companion for something like a piece lily or an asparagus fern. Yeah, so
maybe this plant's second life for me is just somewhere away from that grow light
or something. Yeah, Okay, the next one for me, it was
the hideous flowers and seed pods that linger for months. The flowers themselves are
benign, the flowers aren't hideous, but the whole structure that they come out
of is just it's so ugly. It's a mix of like alive and debt,
and I just tried to like knock off the dead. That's not going
to happen. I did post a photo. I think that is the nicest
that the flowers can possibly look on our Instagram back in like early January.
So if you want to see them at their peak of aesthetic, like,
okay, I'll there to look at that. But I read a lot of
comments again on David's garden where people are like, my plant has never bloomed,
but there are these ugly black cigar shaped things between the leaves. What
are they? Oh? Wow, Well, actually your your plant did bloom,
just not in a way that was at all attractive, and now you're
left with developing seed pods. Sorry. Yeah, So if you aren't going
to grow these from seed, I really urge you to cut them off.
I don't know if that's a strange notion in the tropicals world, but for
gre nervous plants and to a lesser extent, succulents, this is pretty common
practice. So maybe you'll want to keep them the first time to make sure
you don't like them. I did that, But if you can stand it,
I would remove them, yeah, yeah, And speaking for the general
tropicals world, some people feel very strongly about doing this, but I generally
don't really often remove flower stocks until I have seen that it actually harms a
plant's growth or puts it back to flower in my mind, and I don't
know how truth this is, but if a plant has gone to the efforts
to even produce a flower shoot that's large enough that I can remove it,
isn't that energy at least partially expended by that point anyway? And how much
am I really helping the plant to reinvest its energy into foliage if the flower
stock has already even started, So, I mean, you know, obviously
allowing something to come to full bloom and then produce seeds is much more taxing
than just starting the flower stock in the first place. But the mandarin plant
is a very rare case in my experience, where I will never allow it
to come to flower again. I'm not even just going to ignore them when
they show up. The flowers are mildly curious, and then the whole spike
becomes hideous, and it really does seem to tax the plant a surprising amount.
And I would much rather this plant only focus its energies on foliage,
because that's the only remarkable thing about the mandarin plant, and it's a really
good bonus. Yeah, that's just it's much better trait. I don't know
if I've ever experienced a plant where its look is so wrecked by the presence
of its own flowers like this, Like that thought just occurred to me.
Actually, Matthew, do you know one that's worse. I was thinking maybe
fly traps, but in that case, like you can at least see the
trap separately. I mean, the flowers just kind of boring. They're not
like dead, they're looking. That's interesting and kind of a stark reality check.
Like the only plants that I can think of are like, when this
plant goes to seed, it dies. Yeah, exactly. Herbs some of
them, so to compare them back to their more popular cousin, spider plants,
freely bloom. They grow tons of basal shoots, they're covered in baby
plantlets after the flowers fade from the scapes, and they just seem very committed
to consistently being better versions of themselves if they're well cared for, while the
mandarin plant is just way less inclined to freely produce sideshoots around the base to
fill in even without flowering, and it seems like it takes a lot more
time and care to grow one up into a really beautiful, lush specimen.
And it does do this eventually, but to me, at least starting with
the ones that we have, it's giving me very strong vibes of like cheap
six pack of bare root hostas from a box store, because those can take
years to develop into substantial plants in a flowerbed. Like that's not what the
spider plant is about. Okay. Now, on that note, while it
doesn't really vegetatively propagate itself and then form thick lumps with the figure of a
spider plant, they do propagate themselves pretty aggressively by those seeds, and people
online comment about how ceilings appear in their pots around the mother plant. And
again, I'll get more into this in the botanical section. Because there's some
seeds, Okay, they you're going to find them in all of your plants.
Good, don't worry. They don't expel the seeds from the seed buds
instead of just vegetatively propagating themselves with runners to form colonies like the spider plant,
does they just produce tons of seeds to do the same thing. So,
going back to another reason why I won't let my mandarom plant grow to
flower again, one successful flower to seed experience seems to have left me with
enough seeds to grow far more of these than I could ever want in the
rest of my life. Truly. Okay, that's like kind of an upside.
Do it once, then you're good. Yeah, I have a brighter
spot to Pests were not bad for me. I did have a little scale
outbreak near this plant and it was unaffected, so it seems resilient even Yeah,
I actually haven't seen a single pest on mine, and I've been pretty
neglectful of it, so that is indeed a plus. Okay, And hey,
I just want to say it's tough to be a spider plant relative.
That was really in my mind here, so I capped comparing mandarin plant to
that one. It's probably not fair, but like I'm putting that here because
it might happen to YouTube, So maybe this will help anyone listening, Like,
just try to leave that bias out of the experience if you can.
I'm getting the thought that you're viewing this is like the younger emo sibling to
like a high school athletes star student who like has that expectation that they're trying
to live up to. All Right, According to Matthew, Spider plant is
the star student and Mandarin plant is the emo nonconformist, you know, but
like kind of the pretty one. Yeah, what a world was this going?
Okay? I don't know. Okay, well, here's here's my last
challenge, and this could really just be a very personal problem and listening.
But weirdly, I'm already kind of anxious about my pot selection for this plant
when I come to report it, just from an esthetics and styling standpoint,
because the mandarin plant serves such vividly and unusually colored foliage that I'm going to
have to pick something extremely deliberately to avoid a clashing with the pot or like
my whole decourse scheme in my house. Yeah, so I'm kind of thinking
that I might do like the lbed, like the little black dress approach,
and just stick with a very simple, elegant black pot. That's exactly what
I did. Like it's the best option. And I wasn't even really like
thinking like, oh gosh, this is so hard. It was just like
looking and I'm like, oh, this looks good, and I mean,
yeah, that's where I was probably going to end up. So it's cash
pot right now is just plain white with some like kind of texture on the
clay. But it's okay. I think it needs to be black a one.
Yeah, I mean I might also go with something a little bit more
decorative and rustic, as long as it compliments the foliage, it doesn't make
it all look too garish for my taste, because that could definitely happen very
easily. I just want to kind of like unify what this plant looks like
with wherever I end up putting it in my home. Yeah, but again,
that's a very personal choice, and I don't worry nearly this much about
that with like any other plant that I have to be honest, Okay,
have we enjoyed growing this plant all this said, would we replace it if
it died? It's fine, Okay, If it doesn't look remarkably nicer after
a few months of being in its new pot with fresh soil and good nutrients,
it better like neglect because I might just gonna stop caring for it too
terribly much. But in theory, like it could be really really beautiful.
It has traces of that potential right now. Yeah, but we're just gonna
have to see what the future holds, because the photos of this plant looks
so much nicer than the ones that we have. Yeah, I will be
honest, I really wanted to try this. I'm glad and I tried it.
But also honest, this may be the first time on the show when
I say that I am excited to regift this plant. Okay, but this
is absolutely not the first time that you've felt that way about a plant that
we have discussed. So just didn't say it because it may be the most
excited that you felt about getting rid of something that we've covered. Yeah,
I mean, if I'm honest, I'm like actively excited right now to give
it away. I hope your mom's ready. I don't know if she is.
I want that pot back, I want the space back where it's sitting.
I wouldn't get one again soon, honestly. But that said, like,
I'm not urging others to stay away necessarily, Like I wouldn't be afraid
to say that if I really felt that this one just wasn't for me,
you know. Yeah, And to be fair, I did see some six
in spots of them at Miles of Shop the other day. They looked really
nice. They were larger planets that were more developed, Like there is a
lot of potential here. Yeah, I don't doubt that. Yeah, yeah.
Kind of As a side note, I was wondering if this is at
all like the kalathia experience the tropical people among us talk about. I've never
owned one myself, but I hear that it's like all about loving this foliage
than getting at home dealing with browning leaves and like trying really hard and watching
those leaves you loved slip away from you. Does that compare Matthew to this?
Like, that's okay, that's interesting. I would have compared this plant
to like the really colorful aglionema, just because kind of the appearances maybe a
little bit closer to that. Style is a little closer there to me.
And the mandarin plant is honestly not that fussy, and it's respectfully tolerant of
mediocre indoor conditions like aglionemas and pests are not almost guaranteed to do them in
while you watch them slowly decline, as many people find with kalathia and I
also personally think that claythia are just universally much more beautiful and much more elegant
and ill faded than the mandarin plan. Yeah, it's okay, I can
accept that. I mean, I've had, you know, significantly better experiences
with aglionema though, so maybe this is like in the middle for me.
But okay, when I get that, I mean, it does look super
duper like a hasta, just with no trace of beautiful, showy flowers that
show up occasionally opposite. Yeah, so I can see why you're comparing them
to kalathia, and also why other people would probably be inclined to feel that
way. And please don't add us or send a one star review for me
bringing this up again. But at their worst with beat up, tattered brown
foliage, the mandarin plant reminds me of like the worst examples of an overgrown
Tratiscantia plant. And that's the one that's kind of like tainted my impression of
what that plant looks like more often in real life than it does in the
prettiest staged photos, or at least those plants that are really enjoying solid care,
like it's no shade. But there are just some plants that really look
like hell pretty easily. And we've only had these for a few months.
But I'm wondering if this is just one of those. Okay, And I
feel you're kind of telling me that I can't grow a tray to scantia right
now. That's hurtful. Everyone who likes tryscantia should have a trascantia, just
not in my home. Okay, we better move this right along, Matthew.
Yeah, so what are our final thoughts for plant parents who are interested
in giving this a try. Okay, I'll say it for the tenth time,
I think you should just forget that it's a spider plant at all,
just for a while while you establish a care routine. Skip the flowers unless
you really want seeds. And hey, it is a very unique look,
so I'm not mad at it at all. For the cool orange petiles,
like no other plant has that color. Yeah, it's at least worth seeing
it in person, just to see if it speaks to you. And yeah,
just bear in mind that it isn't fool proof if you do end up
get anyone. It's not that fussy, though, I honestly think I had
kind of a strange experience. Yeah, all right, historical, botanical or
cultural information that you'd like to share, Matthew. Well, yes, there's
kind of a weird amount of vague mystery about the mandarin plant, and maybe
I've just not found the right resources. That kind of happened when we were
looking at the lipstick plants, because I found more things later and hopefully I
won't find that again this time. But according to ukhuseplants dot com, which
gave the most kind of detailed explanation about this plant in some ways, the
species is native to the tropical regions of Central Africa, from Sierra Leone in
the west all the way to Tanzania and the east, and as far south
as Zambia, and it was first described in eighteen twenty four by John Linley,
whose name we continue to mention because apparently he described a lot of plants
and the Latin name clorified him. Orchidastrum apparently refers to the ball shaped seed
pods that develop from the star shaped flowers. So bear with me, Stephen,
because here's a tangent of inquiry that I really tried to validate but I
couldn't quite find anywhere. While we were preparing that kind of confirms this,
So bear with these ideological musings. But the word orchid itself comes from the
Latin orchis and the ancient Greek word for testicle, presumably from the testicle like
tubers of some terrestrial species that were among the first described in the family now
called orchid. Okay, I mean I did not get any testicle vibes from
any part of this plant, but nice, No, But seriously look up
photos of the root systems of the genus Orcus if you're curious. So,
I guess it's possible that maybe clarified um orchidastrum it's potentially named because the seed
pods look a bit like testicles. I should have studied botanical Latin, because
I'm really not sure how oft I am. But I was just trying to
figure out, like, do they think this plant looks like an orchid?
Like what? And so yeah, that's that's where I went. Okay,
Now, whether or not I'm right about that, I'm also unsure if I'm
technically correct by calling this plant by that name. I first kind of learned
a bit as clorified m orchidastrum. Yeah, but you first heard about it
as clarified Amammanians, and it's also sometimes called clorified m or can anthroides.
Sometimes it's also labeled with the cultivar name fire Flash. And I just could
not find any details about which of these Latin names is currently recognized or what
this plant looks like in the wild, So, like, what are the
plants that aren't the fire Flash cultivar? Like what do they look like?
I was getting frustrated. Yeah. I saw some videos that were like,
Okay, here's my Fireflash, and I was like, oh cool, what
does this one look like? Looks exactly the same? Yeah, who knows.
Yeah, I've also seen them called like mandarin, tangerine, mango,
tango, Like are these all just train names? Yeah? Yeah. But
like I said before, it's also fairly new to the United States, so
it's only really been grown from about the nineteen nineties. But the last botanical
thing that I want to mention is that, partially because it's so fairly new,
there's not a lot of information really about how to grow this plant.
And a few people have talked about growing these from seed, either deliberately or
because seedlings showed up in the pots of the mother plant. And something that
I feel like I saw quite a few times where comments about how these plants
don't come quote true to type, and that seed grown babies from colorful parent
plants are just all green and rather dull. So apparently it actually takes them
about six months to gain enough size and maturity to show the orange coloring that
you want them to have, and they need to be at least three inches
across. Well, you have several hundred chances to find out, right,
Yeah, and it sounds like who knows what I'll be doing when these plants
finally look like you know what they're supposed to be. It takes time and
patience. And so if you start this yourself, if you're going to grow
these from seeds, don't do what a lot of people in comments sections of
a few of these sites have done and throw away just flats of boring little
seeds, thinking that they reverted to their wild form after just growing a couple
of leaves because it takes time important. I don't know how rewarding that experience
is. But if you want more of these seeds, yeah, okay?
Is that it? Yeah? I don't have anything else. There wasn't much
more detail though to talk about. Okay, In this week's after show,
we muse about the seemingly cursed pots that never seem to work for us.
If extra benter like that sounds appealing, head over Patreon dot com slash plant
Ditty Podcast and check out our official Patreon level. Okay, this has been
plant Debty Podcast. Thanks for listening, don't forget to like and subscribe,
Tell your friends about us, and if you enjoy what we've heard, please
give us a five star rating that i'll us find us To see images of
things we discussed in our episodes, check out our interest in Instagram or visit
our TikTok. If you want to get in touch, emails at Plantatti podcast
dot gmail or check out the website plant Ditty podcast dot com. Until next
week, Thanks for listening and happy growing u