Plant: Anthurium luxurians x dressleri “Sister Of The Magician”; okay I totally made that name up. This version of luxurians X dressleri is a sibling plant of the infamous ‘Black Magic’™️ by Jay Vannini. Any fan of the dark plant vibe can understand the allure of this hybrid; the essence of texture and darkness combined. Jay has not made ‘Black Magic’ commercially available since 2020; but, he did allow myself and another private aroid collector in Georgia access to this sibling plant and I’ve never shared much about it until now….

Moody and mysterious: this specific plant is a hybrid with a lot of character and intrigue. The first thing that makes this specific cross special is that it has the notoriously hard-to-pollinate Anthurium luxurians as a seed parent. Anthurium luxurians is considered to be one of the most attractive species of the genera with a name that literally means “lush”; when grown well it is hard to overshadow the bullate-splendor of an Anthurium luxurians. Anthurium luxurians is a bit of mystery itself with the exact geographic collection point of the plant being unknown and it was even called by the wrong name (A. splendidum) for a long time. This is a mystery which Dr. T Croat of the Missouri Botanical Garden shed some light on in his taxonomic notes A Review of the Anthurium Splendidum Complex (Araceae) Aroideana 2005. So the seed parent is considered aroid royalty, is shrouded in mystery, and difficult to pollinate, what about the pollen parent? Well, Anthurium dressleri Rio Guanche ecotype is the absolute zenith of the dark and velvet aroids, hands down, no comparisons. Jay Vannini made this plant famous in the niche of rare aroid enthusiasts via his plant offerings, hybrids using this species ecotype as a parent plant, and his article (and images within) The Definitive Guide to Velvet Leaf Anthuriums in Nature and Cultivation which all uniquely display the matte-black beauty of Anthurium dressleri Rio Guanche ecotype. So an enigmatically luscious Goddess of texture was bred with the Dark Lord of the velvet underworld to produce this most cherished coalescence of malevolent chloroplasts.

I’ve recently moved my specimen to a six inch pot and am expecting a nice jump in size with the next couple leaves. I find this plant easy to grow for indoor cultivation, a trait surely attributed to the easy-going seed parent and not the spiteful pollen donor. My plant is grown in a bark based aroid mix (4 pts orchiata orchid bark, 2 pts NZ tree fern fiber, 1 pt small hort charcoal, 1 pt pumice with nutricote/gypsum/dolomitic lime), is thoroughly watered every 3 days with RO water, and fertilized with MSU RO water soluble fertilizer, I also use silica, kelp, and calmag plus as directed. This plant is grown under 350-500 FC light and doesn’t seem to mind at all, producing new leaves every 4-6 weeks.