Just, you know, stuck in among the zinnias

[sovay]

So my mother brought home this plant. She found it in Stop & Shop. It was the only one of its kind. We have no idea what it is. I thought at first it was a mother-in-law's tongue, but the flower is all wrong; it's not any of the snake plants, or at least none that I know; it has a label and the label reads "Manager's Special." I am having Little Shop of Horrors flashbacks like you wouldn't believe.

These are better pictures of an appallingly cluttered table than of the plant, but you get the idea.







It is probably something quite ordinary, but I'll hear suggestions . . .

Meanwhile, I am still sick. It's some kind of head cold; my ears hurt so much, I haven't been able to talk on the phone. Today was mostly comprised of running some errands, watching two more episodes of Foyle's War (which won points with me for involving, respectively, the Special Operations Executive and Archibald McIndoe), and realizing to my horror that I can still write up thumbnail descriptions of characters in the Belgariad and Mallorean despite avoiding those books in all substantive ways since middle school. I hadn't even remembered liking Sadi. My brain.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The bloom does seem set to overwhelm the foliage, doesn't it?

I'm glad your mother rescued it--there's something so sad about a plant being reduced to a sale item!

(and what does the placemat it's sitting on show? I see cookies, a candy in a cellophane wrapper, bread sticks... a walnut...

intriguing.)

[sovay]

I'm glad your mother rescued it--there's something so sad about a plant being reduced to a sale item!

I'm quite glad to have it in the house! I just wish the circumstances of its arrival had been a little less reminiscent of Audrey II.

and what does the placemat it's sitting on show? I see cookies, a candy in a cellophane wrapper, bread sticks... a walnut...

It's not a placemat: the plant was on top of a stack of books, topmost Jane Donovan's The Miniature Book of Cookies (1991). You can't particularly see it in this photograph, but the book underneath is Desmond Tate's Tropical Fruit (2001), which I truly recommend—it's illustrated in watercolors like a nineteenth-century natural history, but it includes recipes. And fruits I'd never heard of, like bael fruit, chempedak, and langsat.

[eredien]

My mom had one of these in a pot for like 2 zillion years until our cat ate it. I believe they are poisonous to cats (our cat was fine).

It's a bromeliad, probably a Vriesea. Here, I found an online "bromeliad identifier for dummies."

My entirely unscientific suggestion after doing a search?
- Holy cow, lots of bromeliads out there.
- it will probably die after it flowers but they shoot off things before they die like a spider plant (read about it because the shoots come from different places).
- Water it by pouring water in the middle of its leaves, not around the base of the plant.

Desmond Tate's Tropical Fruit (2001)

I read this as "Desmond Tutu's Tropical Fruit."

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

(Beat me to it)

[sovay]

It's a bromeliad, probably a Vriesea.

Thank you!

Here, I found an online "bromeliad identifier for dummies."

You rock a lot. Hee.

I read this as "Desmond Tutu's Tropical Fruit."

I want to see that illustrated by Kate Beaton.

[whiskeychick.livejournal.com]

beat me to it, too!

behold the langsat

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

bael fruit, chempedak, and langsat

fruit names that look like spelling mistakes :D