Anthurium carlablackiae RA5x10

Anthurium carlablackiae ‘RA 5 × RA 10 Buz’ is one of my absolute favorite carlablackiae and one of the more important plants in my breeding collection. I originally got this plant from Scott Cohen during the initial release of the RA 5 × RA 10 cross.

The cross was originally made by Rory Antolakii using two plants from his carlablackiae collection. RA 5 was unfortunately lost to cold shortly after producing these seedlings, and from what I understand, Rory only made two crosses using the original RA 5 before it died, RA 5 × RA 10 and RA 6 × RA 5. This makes the offspring from these crosses particularly special as the original RA 5 is no longer around to breed with.

There are a lot of beautiful plants that came out of RA 5 × RA 10, but my particular selection, which I named ‘Buz’, is still one of my favorites. It has incredibly dark, almost jet black leaves with broad white veins that are clean and very symmetrical. The contrast between the veins and the dark leaves is really impressive.

Another thing I really like about this plant is how compact it stays. Some carlablackiae can get quite leggy with longer petioles, while Buz stays relatively compact and holds multiple leaves at the same time. As it gets larger it makes an incredible specimen plant.

More importantly for me, it has also been an excellent breeder. I’ve made some beautiful pure carlablackiae crosses with it as well as a number of interspecific hybrids. Some of my favorites have been crosses with Anthurium sp. nov. DF, which have produced some incredible offspring with really wide sinuses and interesting leaf shapes.

Between the almost jet black leaves, broad white veins, compact growth habit and how well it breeds, RA 5 × RA 10 ‘Buz’ is easily one of my favorite carlablackiae I’ve grown and one of the most important mother plants in my collection.