I was looking for P.violacea v malayan. A vendor I know located, and
ordered, one for me. He said his supplier assured him it was P.violacea v
malayan. But the tag says: Phal violacea 'Mentawai' x(Redbank x PPFI). I
had asked about P.violacea v malayan because I had seen a number of photos
identified as this variety, in which the plant semed to be large and quite
floriferous, in marked contrast to other photos I had seen of other
varieties of P. violacea which appeared to be smaller with only a couple
rather non-descript flowers. But Christensen doesn't mention a malayan
variety of P. violacea and he does mention Mentawai as being from a small
island off Indonesia. Is this a case of my vendor being deceived by his
supplier, or a case where subspecific taxonomy is completely messed up (not
too surprising if true), or something else?

Also, I take it that the x(Redbank x PPFI) part of the label indicates that
the plant is a cross of something with something else, but what? Would
Redbank and PPFI be different named clones of the Mentawai variety of P.
violacea? If not, what does this label really mean?

Does anyone have a sense of what can be expected from this plant, both WRT
how it grows and WRT what it will likely provide to crosses made using it
(say with amabilis or schilleriana)?

Cheers,

Ted