Royal Flush?

annafl

Esteemed Member
I'm sure you are tired of seeing my unknown several times now. Randy and I feel it's likely to be a Royal Flush:


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Please feel free to voice your opinion on RF vs. anything else. It is in quite a bit of sun- almost full, unfiltered sun until about 1, then shade, with filtered periods of time here and there. No reds, but lots of watermelon pink and orange-pink, and gold. I bought this as a Gloriosa, but it is a semi-oak and coloring is different.

Also, while we're at it, I'd like to try what Edric said about how to get info for a crotonpedia page. Please let me know any tidbits you know about Royal Flush. I'd love to accumulate enough info to start a page. Anything from hybridizer, hybridization parents, when it was created, culture, anything else you can think of. If we get enough info, I'll compile it in words, send it to Edric, and he'll format a page for us. I would love it if we got lots of participation here! Come on, people!:eek:
 
Ana, I changed my mind. :) With the darker older leaves it resembles one I got from Jeff last year. It was also tagged as Gloriosa but upon further discussion it was ID'd as Ellen Rutherford. I'll go with Ellen Rutherford (or Helen):rolleyes:
 
Randy, I looked up Ellen Rutherford in the wiki. It does resemble the veining in the older leaves, and the leaf shape is prettty spot on, but there seems to be so much red in ER? Also, the habit doesn't seem right, but that could be that in a pot it was close to another plant. Anyway, it's another good possibility, so thanks for bringing that up. I've never seen ER or RF in person, so I'm totally confused! I got this plant from Peter's Crotons almost two years ago, tagged as a Gloriosa also, so I feel it's a named something. As Phil would say, onward through the fog.:rolleyes:
 
Ana,

I'm leaning towards your plant is not a RF. It does have some similarities though. But I always say, I really hate trying to id crotons from pictures here on the computer. I wish I had a RF here in a pot that I could show you when you come down, but I do not. I have a nice specimen in the yard, but that doesn't help us either.
 
Ellen Rutherford i believe has mostly reds . At least mine does .....and has broad sholders not oakleaf ...
 

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Looks close to this one .....But im not sure of the name its an unknown to me .......sure looks close , filtered light all day no direct light...
 

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Jeff is right. That isn't royal flush. Harold lee, john bender, johnny shelton and I always called that plant 'almost edison' because we thought we had found a thomas edison a few times. When we found the big hollywood TE, we realized it was something different, so that one became 'almost edison'. Still a kick ass plant, and it is colorful far more often than royal flush. Kingdavid, that is the same plant. We were never able to come up with any probable heirloom ID
 
Hey, thanks for your discussion and efforts, Jeff, David and Kurt! So we're thinking it's not a RF then. Maybe a known plant that was referred to as 'Almost Edison.' Yay! Thank-you!!! I love this plant. It is such a grateful plant. Came from almost being blacked out to this after it was given good conditions and a little TLC. Being a cancer survivor myself, I call it HOPE in my garden.:D
 
Btw, sorry about the dumb name. When my friends and I started collecting these things back in the 90's, we didn't have any points of reference. Jesse durko knew a few old names, franklin, eleanor, freckles, gloriosa, wizard, mona lisa, tortoiseshell, but other than those few, we had to make names up just to keep track of things. Then george zammas heard there was going to be a croton event in ybor city, and they were selling a BOOK! The only place you could get that book in those days was out of the trunk of lee's car. It took a long time to figure out what we had, bender was a big help, but getting the book was the game changer. Lee and ron parlett were really the guys carrying the load back then, in my opinion we wouldn't have the hobby the way we do now without their efforts. When I look at the wiki, it's fun to realize how many of those dumb names still survive. We just didn't know any better.
 
Here's mine just getting it's mojo going. This came from one of Jeff's sales. The color caught my eye, but it was tagged Gloriosa.DSC_0106.jpg I was later told it was Ellen Rutherford.
 
Hey, David, thanks for the photos. That second plant is gorgeous! I'm not sure it's the same as mine, but with a different light, who knows.
Kurt, thanks for your help. Wish you'd stick around here more. All of us can always use some help with id's and information about crotons.

Randy, that is one beautiful plant. Your ER does have more yellow and orange. Why are these id's so difficult? Thanks for showing me.

Now, let's all remember the other focus of this thread. I'm trying to get a crotonpedia page going for Royal Flush if anyone has any info they know on this cultivar. Anything. Come on, people!;)
 
Anna, your plant has a real name. Lee informed me today that they figured that one out. Captain gilbert cutler. So almost edison is officially retired to the dustbin of croton history. Pretty cool
 
Don't be confused. Same plant in different conditions. There was no CGC stock that got joined with the almost edison stuff. CGC was lost. Johnny and I had found several of these really nice plants around town and once we figured out that it was not TE, we showed it around to bender and alonzo and the west coast guys trying to figure out what it was. Bob was sure he had seen it, and that it was a named plant, but couldn't place it. Those guys eventually matched it up using brown's 1960 book. All of the CGC out there was at one time almost edison. My ID chops are a little different because I started with the plants, not the names. As we grew tons of stuff we started noticing and matching up groups of plants that were different. A lot of plants are carrying several names right now. It might never get sorted out entirely. That's ok. Just realize how much condition (and conditions) effect how these things look
 
Those are not the same two cultivars. What everyone has in their collection as Captain Gilbert Cutler has monster sized leaves. Bob has seen a few of these and has never disputed the CGC id. I'm searching through Dr. Frank Brown's first croton book and not able to locate the Captain Gilbert Cutler's description. Which page am I overlooking?
 
Kurt,

I would have to disagree. I'm with Ron on this, I just don't see these as the same plant. At least from the pictures( which is so hard to id from). This is based on seeing so much orange in the new leaves, which I can't recall ever seeing on CGC.
 
Perfect questions. The answers are a little lengthy, so I'm going to break this into multiple posts. But I promise within a day or two I will hit it all. First things first. Ron, I have no idea where in that book that might be. Lee called me in response to this thread and told me they had figured this one out. The plant we all knew as almost edison was in fact CGC. I wasn't part of that research or discussion, but those guys are pretty thorough, so that's fine with me. Here's the key fact. CGC was gone. Bender didn't have it, brown didn't have it, and halgrim didn't have it. It was just an orphaned name. What we did have, was a very nice, very colorful plant that johnny and I had salvaged out of yards that we called almost edison. There was nobody alive who had a CGC and knew what is was. My point is, everything you now call CGC, came from the plants we called almost edison. It just got renamed. There never was two different plants. To be continued shortly.
 
The 'Almost Edison' tag was applied by several of us to several crotons growing in Sunken Gardens shortly after the City of St. Pete bought the place from the Turners. The AE crotons were growing in nearly full sun in a dry location at the elevated northern end of the Gardens. They were colorful but sun-stressed. In part to deep shade were several other crotons with large leaves that were un-named. In deep shade these plants had large leaves but were none too colorful. In more light, but not direct sunlight, they were still large but had a lot more color. Air layers were taken from AE and the NOIDs. In nearly identical growing conditions, the two crotons turned out to be the same plant! A few years later, they, now it, was named Col. Gilbert Cutler. I have no idea who made this ID. The Sunken Garden plants were distributed at various Croton Society sales and later from air layers taken from some in my yard (which came from Sunken Gardens). I have no knowledge of any originating on the east coast.

Conclusion: CGC in full sun can look a lot like some other crotons with deep oranges and reds; in moderate light, the leaves get much larger and can get colorful with deep pinks and rose shades predominating.

The AE's looked a lot like the pic in Anna's first post - but not enough to make a good ID.

onward through the fog....
 
I realize I still may be pretty new at crotons, but I've watched these two plants- my unknown and CGC growing in my yard under fairly similar conditions for quite some time. On no day did I even entertain the thought that they were similar in any way. The growth patterns of the plants, the habit, the veining, and the colors have been very different. Even the texture of the leaves. I just don't feel they are the same cultivar. I think every one of you would agree if you were here:confused:.
 
Back to the begining. Prior to getting the book (sept 99) we were collecting anything we could get our hands on, with no idea it even had a name. At the ybor city fest, we met lee and ron, and bob alonzo and all the original society. Book in hand, we realized the fifty year old plants we were collecting from looked nothing like the pictures in the book. But as our cuttings grew out, we started to recognize more and more of them.
 
As phil descibes, once you get a bunch of stuff growing in uniform conditions, things start to happen. Similar plants become different and very different plants become the same. We were unburdened by names. elaine spear introduced me to bender, and he had the best collection on the planet. The west coast guys knew him and brown and halgrim already, but propagation was beyond slow. Bender never used fertilizer and might have done a couple of dozen air layers a year to swap with his friends. The west coast guys were out hunting as well, they didn't have as many miami plants, but they had lots of older classic stuff from reasoner. At that time, those 3 old guys and the handful of west coast guys that got to know them, were the only people who could match names and plants. The book was a major blessing and a minor curse. It is the only large compilation of names and photos, but confuses certain things to this day.
 
At the 99 ybor city event, we figured out this much, I had plants and the society guys had names. Perfect. Time to start figuring it out. In the next four or five years the bulk of the plants now in the hobby were collected out of yards on both coasts. Most of you would be suprised how many things that are obtainable now were pipe dreams 10-12 years ago. A lot of times somebody found one plant. Even in the croton hey day, there has never been anything like the auctions or jeff's sales.
 
Back to almost edison. That plant was easily the flashiest plant that we couldn't ID. Several people suspected it was a cutler plant, he, not davis, was the king of killer big leaves varieties. Jeff, your caution with trying to ID off a photo is well founded. It isn't always possible. Bob alonzo has a library of plant books second to none, quite a few have a couple of pages of crotons. There are no other resources. All the original growers are gone. Bender and halgrim are gone. Dr. brown is getting up there. So this is it. There is no higher authority than us. My little piece of the puzzle was collecting this stuff 'in the wild' and seeing what it turned into in optimum conditions. There was only one big named collection left (bender). Now there are dozens.
 
Ron, AE, CGC, whatever you want to call it, is a big leaved plant. It shouldn't surprise you that bob alonzo likes the ID, I would bet he was the one who figured it out. Jeff, look at anna and kingdavid's pictures again. The big clue is, we called it almost edison for a reason. Forget the flush, look at the old leaves in all those pictures, almost like a TE, just not quite as crisp. Make some cuttings, put them on a bench, and six months later they are all the same. That plant has a flush as spectacular as they come, that's how we knew it was different. Cutler was the last of the old growers still standing (at the site of the old kendall landscape at sw 216th st and 147th ave across from monkey jungle) so his plants got around
 
Thanks for the history Kurt,things have really changed in just 15 years or so.I look at my relatively new garden plus my friendly visits to others in the area and I am amazed at how many good varieties are unnamed.I went to a garden Monday with Lamar an saw another 10 really good unnamed varieties that are not in anyone else's garden.My guess in another 20-25 years we will start running out of names :) There are probably 5-10 thousand varieties out there today worth of being named.Just look at our little area ,Jerry produces 600-700 new varieties yearly along with the other smaller hybridizers and all the seedling popping up randomly in gardens.We are not even mentioning all the unnamed plants in Thailand,India etc.My mothers friend visited my garden last year and told me that there was an old boyfriend of hers who lived in Nagpur,India that had an incredible collection 35-40 years ago.we have never even had anyone post from India here yet (at least I cannot remember anyone??)


At the 99 ybor city event, we figured out this much, I had plants and the society guys had names. Perfect. Time to start figuring it out. In the next four or five years the bulk of the plants now in the hobby were collected out of yards on both coasts. Most of you would be suprised how many things that are obtainable now were pipe dreams 10-12 years ago. A lot of times somebody found one plant. Even in the croton hey day, there has never been anything like the auctions or jeff's sales.
 
I guess what I am trying to say is that I think we will all go crazy trying to get "correct names" put on these plants.Just because we call a plant Thomas Edison here in Florida is meaningless.The exact plant could exist in India ,Australia etc will a completely different name that they have been using for 40-50 years.I m sure if we go over there and tell them that they are wrong they will think we are crazy.I think names are only useful regionally in helping people locate varieties that they want to acquire.There is only one correct name ,codiaeum variegatum.
 
But back to Anna's original question on Royal Flush... Attached are a few pics of what was labeled Royal Flush at a Searle sale a few years ago.

Recall that we are dealing with a genetically unstable plant whose cultivars respond differently under various growing conditions.
 

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Wow Phil,that does not look like what I bought as Royal flush??I will try and post some pics later but mine has a different leaf shape and pastel colors,no deep red like yours.

But back to Anna's original question on Royal Flush... Attached are a few pics of what was labeled Royal Flush at a Searle sale a few years ago.

Recall that we are dealing with a genetically unstable plant whose cultivars respond differently under various growing conditions.
 
I got AE about 12 yrs ago from Phil and planted it out in Pine Island near Ft. Myers. I layered it and spread the plant because I think it is one of the best. Later was informend it was CGC. Now when I visit Phil's house I cant help to notice his CGC are flushed out with color and mine are without flush just viening. This has been consistent over the years. We both have more than one in different locations. It makes me think it's something in the dirt but that is probably a different subject. cr3.JPG
 
Phil, I agree with Ray. Your plant resembles my Gloriosa. My Gloriosa is a broad leaf and my unknown is a semi-oak. I believe RF is a semi-oak. CGC is categorized as broad-leaf in the wiki, but I always see a few leaves on each plant that are a 'soft' semi-oak. By that, I mean that the shoulders are only slightly there with no strong definition.

Now, I just went out to look at all the plants. Here are my observations and data. CGC has leaves that are almost exactly twice as long as they are wide. Almost every leaf I measured is very close to 2.0, with slight variation- 2.09 to 1.95. I am measuring where the petiole meets the leaf and all the way to the pointy tip, and the widest part of the leaf. There are a few leaves that are a soft semi-oak, but most are broad-leaved. The older leaves have a moderate tendency to recurve downward. No orange in any of my plants, but they are all from the same mama, just in different locations as air layers/cuttings. A little yellow in some leaves especially the very young ones, but rose pink, red and red veining is the norm in every location. Just more or less of these colors depending on intensity of sun they're getting.

My unknown's leaves range 1.66-1.8 proportionately on every leaf, big or small, with 1.8 being the most common. No leaves were 2.0. Every single leaf is a semi-oak. Some of the older leaves have a slight tendency to recurve downward. Colors are yellow/green in young leaves, turning gold/orange then to orange/pink, and finally to black background and pink with a little red veining.

Now, you might think I'm crazy:eek:, but I think the proportion measurement is important. Instinctively, I knew my CGC's leaves were longer in proportion to width than my shorter,squatter-leafed unknown. The eye is good at detecting these things. Measurements confirmed this. When I measured a few more plants of different types, the proportions of width to length stayed very consistent in most crotons that didn't have crazy leaves.

Therefore, my conclusion is that they're different plants! I'd love for others to measure their CGC's to see if this is consistent in this cultivar. It would be a good tool for identifying different cultivars if this were true.:D
 
This thread has gotten interesting :) I had a look at Ellen Rutherford and that is my vote also.

Ana, I changed my mind. :) With the darker older leaves it resembles one I got from Jeff last year. It was also tagged as Gloriosa but upon further discussion it was ID'd as Ellen Rutherford. I'll go with Ellen Rutherford (or Helen):rolleyes:
 
Koki, AE/CGC needs high light to get those crazy good flushes. I can't get pics loaded for some reason. I have some pics of the plant in the 'wild' condition, no hint of how spectacular it becomes. Bullwinkle, I have a different take on some of your thoughts. Most of the really nice crotons are what I call the miami plants. Most of them never made it around the world, they barely made it out of dade county. Hollie popham used to deal with all the miami guys, he told me getting the best plants out of them was difficult, no different than trying to get the best stuff now. There never were a lot of copies made, and those guys were as competitive as collectors are today. We may not have a perfect history of this stuff, but it's pretty good. Guys like bob alonzo and dr. Brown have put tremendous effort into sorting this stuff out.
 
I agree completely that the names are not as important as the plants, but let me throw a curve to the idea of all these great unnamed plants. I would bet they have names, you just don't know them. There are a lot more names than there are plants. Really good seedlings are few and far between, a high percentage of the best plants are sports. The coppinger/fdr/eleanor story is a good example of an often repeated seedling myth that probably isn't true. Sunburst, the purported parent, is lost. Strangely enough, joanna coppinger is a perfect match. Things get renamed. We still have the plant. Eleanor isn't a seedling, it's a yellow sport of franklin.
 
Finally got the pics to load. Here is the gloriosa that probably caused all the gloriosa/royal flush confusion. Donated to the society and purchased by jeff, and with the gloriosa id scoffed at every step of the way (told ya, lee) nutricote changed everything. The other pics are AE/CGC as it looked when we collected it. No hint of how bad ass it would turn out.
 

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Mike and Randy, ER is definitely closer in leaf shape and proportion and habit. However, the color is really different. Maybe sun/other conditions can account for it? My plant has a lot more flushing of the color in the leaf itself, whereas ER seems to have most of the color in the veins? As you can see with mine, the main colors are gold/orange, pink/orange, and pink. The Stoplight you see next to it shows red. Mine has no red except a little thin line in veins in older leaves. The ER's seem to uniformly have mostly red with a little of other yellow/orange?:confused:
 
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