Up and Coming Botanist

Anigozanthos manglesii

Anigozanthos is an Australian genus in the family Haemodoraceae, and the name “kangaroo paws” is often used for them.The flowers come in various colors, but one of the most striking is Anigozanthos manglesii, with its vivid red-and-green flowers. When the tubular flowers open, they peel back a bit to show their pale green inside hue, as well as their yellow stamens. Native to Western Australia.

Leucospermum ‘Blanche Ito’

Leucospermums are South African members of the Protea Family, and their colorful heads of flowers with long-extended styles give them the came “pin cushions”. This one is a hybrid with Leucospemum reflexum in its parentage, and it was developed in a breeding program carried out in Hawaii. It is certainly having a good year!

Aloe buhrii

This beautiful aloe is native to the winter-rainfall region in western South Africa, but it is a rare plant with a small distribution in a remote dry valley, so it is seldom seen in habitat. However, it thrives in California’s mild coastal areas, since the winter rainfall here coincides with the plant’s preferences. It has yellow and orange forms, both of which are found at the Ruth Bancroft Garden.

Mammillaria elongata

Many species of Mammillaria have chubby rounded bodies, but this one is thinner and more elongated, accounting for its name. It is a fairly common species in central Mexico, with the color of its spines varying from one population to another. The plant pictured has white spines, sporting a bit of red or orange only when they first emerge, but other plants of the species have yellow or red spines. The genus Mammillaria is one of the largest groups in the Cactus Family, with most of the species coming from Mexico.

Aloe excelsa × petricola

Aloe petricola is a stemless species from northeastern South Africa, while Aloe excelsa comes from farther north (mainly in Zimbabwe) and has a trunk. The hybrid takes after A. petricola in being stemless and in the striking red-and-white elongated clusters of flowers, but it has inherited the many-branched inflorescence of A. excelsa, which makes for a very showy plant indeed.

Euphorbia fimbriata (variegated)

This Euphorbia species forms a mounded cluster of cylindrical stems with projecting spines. The variegated form pictured is notable for its pallid stems with pink tips. This plant is often sold as Euphorbia mammilaris, a related species with which it has long been confused. Both are native to South Africa.

Introducing the Brassica oleracea, a plant species whose cultivars include…all of the above. They all originated from the same plant aka THIS FUCKER! 

No, really. This thing has existed in Europe for thousands of years, during which time different societies had different culinary preferences, leading them to selectively breed for different traits. For example, a preference for the eating leaves led farmers to select seeds from the plants with the largest leaves, resulting gradually in the development of kale.

The real fun thing is, this happened on a vast timeline. Kale was developed over 4000 years ago, while Savoy cabbage was first documented just 5 centuries ago. And different cultivars developed in different regions across Europe and Asia, with their phenotypes and names changing wildly over time. (Fun fact, Brussels sprouts are indeed named for Brussels, the capital city of Belgium, where they were developed from a predecessor imported from Rome.) 

The list above isn’t even exhaustive btw. There are plenty of other ridiculous cultivars (such as the Jersey cabbage, pictured below), and there’s no telling how many other forms existed throughout history, and which would have counted as distinct cultivars, and how many names and groups they were separated into, and, and, and—and imposing taxonomy on the real world is a mess, basically, because the real world does not give a shit about making itself comprehensible or categorizeable. But still we try. Planet Earth has Hot Mess Energy, and would you really have it any other way?

Ferocactus robustus

Various species of Ferocactus are found all around Mexico, as well as the southwestern United States, and many of them get very stout. In contrast, Ferocactus robustus has small heads, but over time it can add so many of them that it becomes an enormous clump several yards or meters across. It tends to flower a little bit here and there, rather than making a big show all at once. From Puebla and Oaxaca, to the southeast of Mexico City.