Tanya and Jos, no guest, lots of feelings. Tanya is healing her plants and starting to prep for Corsica. Jos is moving an entire anthurium collection out of a greenhouse he lost on two and a half months’ notice.

Plant drama: an Indonesian Anthurium ‘Muchlis’ sold in the US for $3,000, and the post that followed. Tanya talked with Aina, an Indonesian-born chef in the San Francisco Bay Area, about giving credit, “good” gatekeeping, and why “Indo” should never have meant knockoff. Jos tells the story behind the name ‘HU’.

Rooting for Us: Plant Provenance launches December 19, and the launch campaign is a friendly competition between ten plant families. Sign up, confirm your email, vote daily, bring your friends. The winning family earns a €100 conservation donation for its society. First standings: Saturday, October 31.

News from Peru: Salvia messii, a blue-and-white sage named after Lionel Messi, and Puya ukumari, a bromeliad named for the Andean bear.

Casual chat: Are people falling out of love with plants?

Hot or Nah: Massonia depressa, a creamy Hoya curtisii, and Arisaema thunbergii.

Rate That Weird Plant: Dorstenia gigas, Caladenia lobata, and Eriospermum paradoxum.

Support Jos’s greenhouse on Ulule:

Join Rooting for Us: plantprovenance.com

Follow Prop Culture for new episodes every two weeks, and find us on YouTube, Instagram, and Substack for the full picture, including the images of the plants we rate.

Brian Lagunas, aka Anthurium Papa, joins Tanya and Jos for an episode full of heart and a little chaos.

News: The Crop Trust’s report on edible aroids and why collectors might be part of the backup plan; Costa Rica paying landowners to keep forests standing, and measuring recovery by sound; and the Desert Botanical Garden’s rescue center for confiscated plants.

Interview: Brian’s path from a fateful Anthurium warocqueanum encounter at Ecuagenera to breeding within a year, his friendship with legendary grower Barry Schwarz, meeting Dr. Tom Croat at our Miami barbecue, why water quality is “crucial,” and how he set out to kick down the gates of a gatekept hobby.

Hot take: Should breeders give a whole seed batch one name? Brian says no. Jos disagrees, mostly.

Hot or Nah: A Hoya with fuzzy black new leaves, an inappropriately shaped Abelmoschus, and the $40,000 Monstera everyone side-eyed in Miami.

Rate That Weird Plant: Brunsvigia orientalis, Utricularia dunlopii, and Paronychia erecta.

Follow Brian: @anthuriumpapa on Instagram and YouTube.

Follow Prop Culture for new episodes every two weeks, and find us on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ for the full plant-nerd experience.

Tanya and Jos are home from Miami, cold, jet-lagged, and still on speaking terms. This week they spill the tea on their first-ever IAS Tropical Plant Expo.

In the news:

• Hold My Bud: oaks that got eaten by caterpillars one year open their buds about three days later the next. That's enough to starve the hatchlings, and enough to cancel out a decade of climate-driven early spring. Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
• Pilea does math: the vein loops on a Pilea peperomioides leaf form a near-perfect Voronoi diagram around its hydathodes. This could change how botanists think leaf veins form.
• Who grew your houseplant? Grist reports on the WeCount! campaign asking Costa Farms and big retailers to sign a worker-written code of conduct on heat safety. Ethical sourcing shouldn't stop at the forest edge.

Miami:

• Two visits to Bill Rotolante's Silver Krome Gardens
• A barbecue that turned into a who's-who of the aroid world, with Dr. Tom Croat at the table
• Booth lessons from a bootstrapped European startup
• Jos's talk on intersectional hybridization in Anthurium
• Aroids After Dark
• A private tour of Dr. Jeff Block's garden
• Fairchild's outdoor rainforest

Hot or Nah: Anthurium 'Titan Fingers', Hoya 'Parfum Pagode', Adenium socotranum

Rate That Weird Plant: Haworthia pumila 'Donuts', Verticordia staminosa subsp. cylindracea var. cylindracea, Pachypodium rosulatum subsp. gracilius

Follow Prop Culture for new episodes every two weeks, and find us on ⁠YouTube⁠, ⁠Substack⁠, and ⁠Instagram⁠ for the full plant-nerd experience.