Arid and Aroids: A feast for the eyes
(Succulentophile is giving way this week to this article by plant collector and photographer Peter Bangayan.)
Going into the Manila Seedling Bank Foundation (a haven for plant collectors at the corner of EDSA and
The entrance is inconspicuous, not as large as the others because it is situated at the corner of the selling area along the main entrance road. Inside the store is a wonderful display of adeniums, sansevierias, agaves, yuccas and other succulents, as well as rare ferns and aroids.
The store, which opened about three months ago, is owned by partners Neil Ganigan, Fernando Silvestre Jr. and Michael Ganigan. The three have been collecting plants for a number of years and started their succulent collection about a year ago and now includes adeniums, agaves, small Madagascan euphorbias, sansevierias, pachypodiums and yuccas. They propagate their plants at their nursery in Bulacan where some of the succulents, such as sansevierias and agaves, are grown in beds.
Focusing on the arid part of the store, the first things you will notice upon entering are the hybrid adeniums with their colorful flowers and large trunks or caudices. Most of the adeniums are grafted onto Adenium obesum plants, which grow faster and are hardier than the other adenium species. Adeniums with large caudices usually take a number of years to grow to size. In the middle portion of the succulent plant display you will notice the large sansevierias, many of which are hard-to-find species and cultivars such as Sansevieria kirkii “Superclone,” a dark thick-leafed form of S. kirkii, Sansevieria grandis hybrid, with its large, dark and glossy twisting rosette, and an unidentified sansevieria hybrid with its very architectural rosette of dark green cylindrical leaves. Another attractive sansevieria is a large, bluish, fan-type sansevieria, perhaps a hybrid of Sansevieria desertii. There are also numerous Sansevieria cultivars growing in clumps such as S. trifasciata “Mein Leibling,” S. trifasciata “Black Sport” or “Austrian Black,” S. trifasciata “Daria” and others. Among the Sansevieria hybrids that you will see are Sansevieria cv. Fernwood, a large clump of variegated Sansevieria alva or USDA hybrid H-13 and many more.
At the rear of the succulent plant display you will see the agaves. The small agaves on display include Agave x leopoldii with its thin leaves and white hairs along the leaf margins; an Agave filifera fa. compacta, a beautiful small form of Agave filifera with fatter, shorter leaves and white markings on the leaves; and a large Agave ovatifolia, which forms a beautiful rosette of wide, bluish-white powdery leaves. Another large and interesting agave is Agave gypsophila, a rare agave with bluish, curly-toothed leaves.
There are also numerous species, hybrid agaves and variegated plants such as the Agave potatorum “Shoji Raijin” mediopicta, Agave Hummel’s hybrid, Agave hybrid “Sharkskin,” Agave macroacantha, Agave victoria reginae variegate and others. There are also a number of small yuccas and related plants in front of the agave display. In the background of the succulent display you will see two large pachypodiums — a Pachypodium lamerei and a Pachypodium geayi — both with their fat, spiny trunks looking like small palm trees.
All around the succulent display area you will also notice small Madagascan euphorbias such as Euphorbia rossii, Euphorbia cylindrifolia and Euphorbia sakarahensis mostly grown as bonsai in small ceramic pots and also a number of small, interesting succulents such as Fockea edulis and dorstenias.
For the succulent collector, it is well worth visiting the store to look at the succulent plant display and to pick up a few succulents for your own collection.
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