My Anthurium magnificum has been producing at least one new bloom a month since late last fall, and with the new bloom at the start of 2022, I decided to photograph the bloom stages each day similar to what the folks at Exotic Rainforest did with one of their Anthurium regale inflorescences.
My magnificum is not in a greenhouse, and has not been doing fantastic with the dry winter air and central heat running each day, so after this flower I’ll be trimming them before they can reach mature stages.
Check back for each phase! I’ll be dividing up the pictures based on flowering stages to ensure page loading times don’t get too overwhelming. You can skip to the second post of this series by clicking here.
January 15th – when the influorescence first began emerging from the spathe.
January 16th – all photos taken in the morning, between 7 am and noon each day (depending on lighting).
January 17th
January 18th – almost fully emerged at this stage. Note that the plant is by a window, and is not receiving any supplemental humidity apart from being near other houseplants. I did not need to help the bloom emerge in any way. Compared to my A. clarinervium or A. forgetii, this also emerged tip first, rather than with the center bowing outward before the tip sprung free.
January 19th – you can see the body of the spadex with clear pattern through the entire influorescence. Each of the little segments is a reproductive body of the flower, with a stigma in the middle and later, stamens will emerge in a ring around it.
The spathe is now fully separated from the body of the influoresence, and beginning to splay downward.
At this point, the body of the spadex is about 4 1/2 inches long, and getting longer.
January 20th – the spathe is clearly curving backward, and the body of the spadex is plumping up a bit. The bottom portion of the flower is beginning to look more “full” than the top. At this stage, I was fertilizing at half strength every 7 to 10 days when I watered.
January 22nd – I missed January 21, but fortunately nothing too significant happened.
January 23rd
You can see the bottom half starting, ever so slightly, to turn more yellow than the top.
January 24th – Female phase is imminent!
January 25th – the first drops of stigmatic fluid appear.
January 26 – Bottom portion of the inflorescence is definitely hitting full swing of female phase, but the top half isn’t as ready.
Close up of the segments, where you can see the fluid emerging from the center of each portion.
January 27th – not once did I ever smell something from this inflorescence, but maybe I just wasn’t up early enough.
The stigmatic fluid is present on only about 1/2 of the spadex; the plant is either too tired from also producing seeds at this point in time or it wasn’t fertilized enough or who knows. When I had successful pollination, nearly the entire inflorescence of the receptive flower was covered in stigmatic fluid.
January 28th – more of the same. Inflorescence is turning more yellow at this point.
January 29th – more of the spadex is producing stigmatic fluid at this point, nearly 3/4. You can see that the bottom portion is definitely turning yellow.
Still no scent!
January 30th – the quantity of fluid is the same/less than the day before. Around here is when I suspect the female phase is ending.
Compared to my magnificum x crystallanium hybrid, the fertile female stage is much much shorter. The hybrid remained in female receptive phase for easily 2 weeks, which was extremely unusual. This roughly 4 to 5 day span of female receptive phase is more of what I have experienced with my forgetii, clarinervium, and previous inflorescences of this magnificum.
That wraps up this batch of day-by-day photos of the bloom!
Subscribe or bookmark this page; I’ll add the next round and link it here when I have at least a week of photos ready.
Thank you for following along! You can see more of the day to day management of my plant collection by following me on Instagram – @TrexPlants.
