Ficus vasta from Hidaybu, YE-HD, YE on December 6, 2024 at 10:23 AM by James Bailey
* iNaturalist
recently i became part owner of 10 acres of old orange grove in central florida. maybe this will make @estacionseca somewhat nervous? hmmm, we can't tag people?
i'm not sure if anyone other than estacion seca is still around from my decade old thread about
a different way to conserve the ghost orchid. basically i made the case that crossing the ghost orchid (dendrophylax lindenii) with the more drought tolerant dendrophylax funalis would facilitate its colonization of florida, specifically places like old orange groves. the response was overwhelmingly negative, to say the least. "
give me your boos, i am nourished by your hatred!"
afterwards i learned that one of the main reasons that humans have been able to colonize the planet is because of our cold tolerance, which we "borrowed" from neanderthals. if it were up to the purists ("
our races shouldn't mix") we'd all still be in africa hunting and gathering. progress depends on difference.
if anyone is genuinely interested in the topic of adaptation via hybridization,
here are over 100 sources on the the topic.
last week here in los angeles, in the middle of the night, i stood nervously in front of a big bedroom window. immediately in front of me were two steel shelving racks filled with zip lock bags housing countless seedlings, including a couple fig hybrids that i recently made, such as ficus opposita x carica. just outside the window were several racks of my epiphytic kalanchoe hybrids, nearly a year old, about to bloom for the 1st time, and not even bothered by the ridiculous winds. the amount of variation in form they exhibit within a month of germination has been incredible and endlessly fascinating. what made me nervous is that in the distance i could see a big wildfire. naturally i engaged in some painful mental calculations to try and decide which babies i'd throw under the bus.
on the one hand were my fig hybrids that could possibly be the best fig for the tropics. ficus carica in the tropics is highly susceptible to root knot nematodes (rkn). on the other hand were my ornamental and very charming kalanchoe hybrids. we can't eat them but hummingbirds sure enjoy the nectar.
just now i googled for #1 plant rule and the results were disappointing. it's actually,
don't keep all your eggs in one basket.
here are all my plant rules.
small disasters are a given. big disasters are only a matter of time. nature's perception of time is different from our own. for nature, big disasters happen one after the other. life only manages to survive when it gets spread around fast/far enough. colonization is the same thing as not having all your eggs in one basket. life and colonization are two sides of the same coin. it's impossible to imagine a life form that is incapable of colonization.
hybridization can facilitate colonization because it allows two species to exchange their most useful traits with each other. ficus carica exchanges its big tasty fig for opposita's resistance to rkn. dendrophylax lindenii exchanges its bigger flower for dendrophylax funalis' drought tolerance. they hedge their bets. the most useful traits, like drought tolerance, are put in more baskets.
so far here in socal it hasn't really rained this season. it's ridiculous. the climate is constantly changing, in some cases quite drastically. so adaptability, which can be facilitated by hybridization, is so incredibly important.
change is the only constant.
is anyone else on here on inaturalist? i sure was late to the party. here are a few of
my projects...
epiphytes on ficus
epiphytic kalanchoes
favorite ficus finds
murophytic ficus
ficus identification tug of war
not sure if you've noticed, but inaturalist isn't very user friendly. the most important tip/trick is to go into the search filter and uncheck "verifiable". for my full list of tips/tricks, check out
this post.
what's so strange about inaturalist is that a plant's identity is determined by voting. it doesn't matter if you're the scientist who 1st described the species. it doesn't matter if it's your 1st time seeing the species. everyone gets one vote as to its identity.
easy? yes. fair? yes. effective? hah.
today for the 1st time i noticed this ob thread...
rules and differing opinions. it has this poll...
1. Should orchidboard be censoring people's opinion?
yes - 11 people
no - 1 person
easy? yes. fair? yes. effective? hah.
imagine the same poll, but with voting replaced with donating. would there still have been 12 participants? nope. maybe 4 at most. 3 people would have donated for "yes" and one person would have donated for "no". this would mean that 8 people who participated in the voting poll didn't really care enough about the topic to put their money where their mouth was.
me: would you like one of my kalanchoe hybrids for free?
you: sure!
me: how about paying $5 for one?
you: well...
in 2009 i started this ob thread...
category for orchid societies? voila! marty created
the category and he didn't even charge me a penny! yay? the category has barely been used. let's blame facebook?
on fb you don't even need to ask for a "category" to be created. on fb a category is basically a group. anyone can easily and freely create any group for any topic. for example,
here's a plant group i created for plant people in my area. the paradoxical problem is, since it's so free and easy to create a group, there are a gazillion groups, so finding the most useful ones is harder and harder.
with this in mind, it would be easy for ob to make fb go extinct. we'd just use donations to rank categories by usefulness. those of us who want a fruit category would donate for its creation. the more money donated for it, the higher the fruit category would be placed on the homepage, and the more attention it would receive.
right now there are already a few forums entirely dedicated to fruit, such as...
growingfruit
tropical fruit forum
not to mention the millions of fb groups about fruit. so how big could the demand possibly be for a fruit category on the orchidboard? i have no idea.
one of the biggest steps in human history will be when everyone finally figures out the problem with not knowing the demand for things. here on ob, donations could be used to figure out the demand for numerous things...
- the demand for fruit discussion
- the demand for terrestrial orchid discussion
- the demand for drought tolerance discussion
- the demand for laelia discussion
- the demand for a rule
- the demand for a thread being locked
- the demand for someone being banned
all this incredibly useful feedback is the only way for ob to quickly and correctly adapt to the constant onslaught of countless changes.
getting some land in florida wasn't a whim for me. ever since i've been growing epiphytes here in meager winter rain socal, i've dreamed about summer rain (rather than summer rayne). this dream is nearly half a century old. i've mentioned it at least a couple times here, for example...
tampa florida outdoor growing.
i posted in that thread a decade ago. it's fun to compare how much my plant priorities have changed since then. back then i didn't even know that artificial fig pollination was even possible. i was so ignorant! if only i could email my younger self. sadly i can't. the closest thing i can do is "email" young plant people. the minor detail is that most of you aren't young. are
any of you young?
maybe you're young at heart? the easiest test is if you join inaturalist. that place is crawling with
young folks.
if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions regarding what i should do with 10 acres of old orange grove in florida, i'm all ears.
angraecum dives on ficus vasta
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