Hoepian Flora- Kissumeria tree (Kissumeria cordeflorum) The tree of love, passion, and romance, it is quite fitting that it is the descendent of the Bleeding Heart flower (Lamprocapnos spectablis). Discarding its herbaceous perennial growth habits, it instead evolved a weeping tree-like habit. Some Kissumerias bloom every spring and autumn, while others bloom year round. A very rare tree to see, when seen it is found along cool mountain riversides, moist northern woodlands, and private gardens. Besides seed, this tree can also reproduce asexually from suckers that infrequently sprout up naturally. It’s name “Kissumeria” comes from the sound “kissu” (the sound of kissing). The scent of the flowers is considered a weak aphrodisiac, causing the human/dragon smeller to have an urge to kiss people that they find to be attractive (or to be more precise, make the smeller kiss people that they see as their significant other/soul mate). The stronger the scent (and the more emotionally attached the smeller is to the person), the more passionate the kiss may become. This makes it a popular ingredient for both love potions and aphrodisiac medications. It is also traditionally hung up in the spring like mistletoe in some localities. Due to the overuse of these traditions, and the fact that the flowers’ scent causes people to kiss against their initial will and consent, some towns and cities have bylaws prohibiting the growth and usage of Kissumeria flowers and fruit. The wood, known as Kissuwood, can be used decoratively for furniture and handle ornamentation due to the inner wood’s unique blue and red ring colouration. Because of the tree’s rarity, having Kissuwood items or furniture is a symbol of high status. The Heartslavia Ardor Gardens have an abnormally large specimen tree named Utena, which is the only specimen of its kind and age to be displayed in a public garden.
DONE. FINALLY, GOT THE DAMN THING DONE. I have never, ever, worked this hard and long for one plant profile illustration. It was worth it, but holy crap, the file size and number of layers involved made it that even my sharp mac was getting super duper laggy (it even crashed once I ended the art stream tonight).
Unlike previous profiles, this one is a redux from an older drawing/profile from years ago. peaceypanic was originally the one to request me to draw this tree as I recall, from when I was asking for what fantasy flora of mine that people wanted to see (I hope you like it).
Before I start the usual banter let me start by making this an opportunity to inform via PLANT ID COMPARISONS FOR HORTICULTURAL BEGINNERS (cause kihaku is tired of this painfully common misID); Schlumbergera truncata to the left, Schlumbergera x buckleyi to the right. Market-wise S. truncata is pretty common, while S. buckleyi is rarely ever found in nurseries (it’s slower growth makes it unpopular for raising) and instead more likely to be found in the windowsills of pass-along plant growers like your favourite gardening grandma or aunt. For growth/nature S. truncata is faster to induce into bloom and comes in more floral colours, while S. buckleyi are slower to induce into flower and only come in pink (though there are rumors they come in white as well). S. truncata has mirror floral symmetry, while S. x buckleyi has radial floral symmetry. To keep this ID ramble shorter here’s a labelled illustration comparison from mattslandscape.com to sum up what I would say anyways:
Now that we got that correction out of the way let’s get to the usual banter again. Besides my Goldy truncata, these two are the last flowers of the season, and will be my last opportune attempt to cross them for the flowering season. I’ll be labelling/documenting the cross once I get the plant-tags ready. This year has been a rather poor in crossing successes, which may be due to anything from the plants being stressed to just the temperatures/times being different with my crosses from last year. So we’ll see if at least these two take.
Also FUNNILY enough despite all of those Schlumbergera seedlings growing right now that I showed a week or so ago, those are not ALL of the Schlumbergera crosses sown; the fruit from the S. x buckleyi is still taking it’s sweet time to ripen it’s fruits. Guess it’s not just the flowers that take ages to mature. At least this means a few less seeds/seedlings to tend to for a while longer.
Photographed March 1st 2016
Bringing this old post back purely cause of the floral diagram and the fact it’s Christmas/Thanksgiving Cacti season.
So then, speaking of Schlumbergeras here is my collection of them again. Despite my post before of getting some of them to bud/bloom, they were still blooming poorly with a lot of bud drop. So desperate times called for desperate measures; I moved the quarantine lights to the cooler bedroom (with that, the areogarden lights became the quarantine lights), propped them up with some chairs, placed the Schlumbergeras inside, and then blanketed them over with some spare blankets (not the wisest choice of material but it’ll have to do) to make sure no other light got in, and have been keeping the air conditioner on for 80% of the time. Since then they have been doing better.
letsturtwigthings, jerscaplants, omgplants, and- somebody (I can’t remember who… sorry) have mentioned before that they have had difficulty getting their Schlumbergera (ie- Christmas/Thanksgiving Cacti) to flower, so here are my findings from my own of the two common influences (may I add that it may take over a month before you see results):
*blows dust off old post* @hqcreations this post may be up your ally for inducing your Schlumbergera plant to bloom.
I’ve been fortunate that the old countryside farmhouse that they’re in now is ideal for inducing flowers, however I definitely had to keep more watch when I was living in that ungodly hot apartment that had city lights constantly shining in (I even had a lot of bud drop due to the hot/dry air back in that place). Imo this info is still applicable and I hope it helps you.
Also I can say that Schlumbergera x buckeyi is a bit slower to induce to bloom than S. truncata and tends to be a few weeks to even a month later than its more common cousin.
Kihaku-Gato's Garden Blog (tumblr import) 