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carlablackiae "Tropicarla" x magnificum "Norte"The seed parent has a naming story better than its paper trail. I bought it from an Ecuadorian nursery at the tail end of a plant show, sold to me as seed grown, which it was not - divided at the stem, plain as day once I got it home and looked closely. Not enough there to call it wild-collected, but not enough to fully trust the tag either. I keep several flowering-size A. carlablackiae around and try to tell them apart when I can, and this one got its name off a Rays broadcast, of all things - the announcer kept saying Tropicana Field and something clicked. Tropicarla. Possibly my best name yet, for a plant that is a far more intelligible statement than anything I tend to write about it.The pollen parent, magnificum "Norte," came to me from Scott Cohen as a seed-grown baby, and it earns its own footnote among magnificum ecotypes - the venation forks close to the margin rather than closing up in a perimeter vein like some others do. Its inflorescence smells like menthol and moth balls, which is either charming or alarming depending on your nose. Put the two together and you get this batch. No conclusions yet on what it favors, but I like the parents enough to be patient about it.

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