{"id":50687,"date":"2014-01-09T15:40:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T19:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50687"},"modified":"2014-01-09T15:40:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T19:40:54","slug":"tropical-leaf-under-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50687","title":{"rendered":"tropical leaf under glass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><big>Cleaning up the tropicals for their winter rest in early November, there remained an absolutely perfect leaf on Colocasia &#8216;Blue Hawaii.&#8217;  I cut it for a vase, and when the water had evaporated and the leaf was still in good shape, I laid it on a book shelf.  Now I was intrigued that such a soft leaf had endured this long.  How much longer could it last?   In late December I noticed that the texture of the leaf had turned from brittle to a suede-like feel and was still beautifully intact.  The terrarium turned up at a <a href=\"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=45458\">garage sale,<\/a> and I was drawn to its simplicity.  No faux Edwardian flourishes.  It was missing one of the rounded footings, but that could be easily fixed.  (How fitting that a seedpod from the triangle palm was exactly the right size and shape.  That&#8217;s the seedpod on the left in the photo.) I admit that out of all the uses I could imagine for the glass case, housing a colocasia leaf was not one of them.  But then that&#8217;s the attraction of a transparent box &#8212; its endless possibilities.  Since enclosing the leaf in the glass case, the texture has reverted back to potato-chip brittle.  Keeping the case on the warm mantle over the fireplace might not be the best site for it, but it&#8217;s where I can see it most often.  I moved it into the bright light of the kitchen for the photo.  At this angle, doesn&#8217;t it resemble a giant tropical butterfly?<\/p>\n<p><center><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/jan2014\/P1011739.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\" photo P1011739.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Colocasia &#8216;Blue Hawaii&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plantdelights.com\/Colocasia-esculenta-Blue-Hawaii-for-sale\/Buy-Blue-Hawaii-Elephant-Ear\/\">Plant Delights Nursery<\/a> offers this colocasia via mail order.  Mine was found locally.  (PDN&#8217;s 2014 catalogue arrived in the mail yesterday and lists this colocasia.)  If garage sales don&#8217;t prove fruitful in sourcing the case, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shopterrain.com\/terrariums-sitting\/antique-brass-curio-case\/productOptionIDs\/8ba699ee-bdea-41fe-acd4-268bc157700f\">Terrain<\/a> offers a similarly simple version.<br \/>\n<\/big><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cleaning up the tropicals for their winter rest in early November, there remained an absolutely perfect leaf on Colocasia &#8216;Blue Hawaii.&#8217; I cut it for a vase, and when the water had evaporated and the leaf was still in good &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=50687\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2478,842,898],"tags":[240,3273,3275,1596,3274],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-dbx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50687"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50687"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50841,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50687\/revisions\/50841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}