Gloxinia erinoides, K. 'Strawberry Fields', Chautemsia calcicola, Columnea herthae, Microchrita 'Phuket', S. 'Prudence Risley' and S. bullata

This is becoming one of my favorite plants in the collection. It's Gloxinia erinoides. It's labeled Gloxinia erinoides 'Alto Paraiso'. It's supposed to have plain green leaves but it has the coolest spotted leaves with redish highlights. It looks more like the Google searches for G. erinoides 'Red Satin', but this was grown from seed from the Brazil fund and it "should" be what it says it is.

In any case, this is a cool plant with cute tiny flowers and it likes it humid!

This is an old friend, Kohleria "Strawberry fields". Nice plant that blooms and blooms and blooms with a huge head of flowers even on a starter plant.











Great red blooms held up on top of the plant.

 Haven't had a pic of this on for a while. It's Chautemsia calcicola. It's a tiny thing with small purple rhizomes. It really needs to be kept moist or it does NOT do it's thing. If you keep it too dry, and it still grows for you, the leaves will turn out tiny. If it does get what it wants, it seems to make a pretty good terrarium plant that is reasonably easy to get to bloom.

The one outstanding things about it is that it really makes the rhizomes in abundance (it seems) and they do start again after you've goofed it up a few times. Don't toss the pot till you've really searched for the little purple rhizomes.

 Got a baby of a formerly named Chirita augustifolia.

They make an easy offshoot to propagate.

 This is one of my favorites too. It's a Columnea lehmanii now known as a Columnea herthae. This little plant is pretty darn cool! I'm not sure if the flowers ever open much, but it sends out these little fuzzy blooms and they are really showy and cool and this is a plant you really need.

I keep this one under a dome too, and I'm not sure I have to, but it seems to like the humidity.

 Another picture of the blooms and bracts. Not bad eh???

 My Microchirta (annual) species from Phuket made the seed pod you might be able to make out on the upper right side. It's the long pointy pod like a Strep.

I'm going to set that seed and share, and see if I can keep the plant going after it dies for the season... being an annual and all.

Nice plant, it likes the humidity too... seeing a pattern today at all???

This is a Sinningia 'Prudence Risley'. There is nothing at all not to be in love with with this plant. It's got every good feature you want and nothing you don't!

Look at the color and size of the flowers!

Look at the pleasant size and good foliage!

Find this one!

Lastly, for today, but not least(ly).... This ia a baby Sinningia bullata. I get such a kick out of the fuzz. Nice plant. It seems to get big and I was so very sad to lose my tuber of my big one last winter, but I'm starting out with another and we'll see that we don't water this one too much.


It was very, very finicky about starting from a cutting, whereas some of the other Sinningias just threw themselves off the counter so they could put down some roots off a busted leaf, this one is a hard... or at least here it's proven to be tough to start more.

Questions????


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Chautemsia calcicola, Sinningia 'Gabriel's Horn' and other cool stuff.

This is Siningia 'Gabriel's Horn'. Now this is a cool Sinningia. The calyx is modified so that it appears to have a double set of petals. As you can see the color is quite spectacular.

This is the Chautemsia calcicola. It was mentioned in the last post but here is another look at this extremely cute gesneriad that seems to do very will in a high humidity environment (think under a dome) but blooms quickly from a small seedling. Rumor has it that it also produces rhizomes??

This is a shot of the flower with a dime for comparison. You'll notice that the flowers are very small but showy!

The 'tiny twins....' Here is Sinningia 'White Sprite' and it's pal, Sinningia 'Moon Ray'. Both are very tiny plants with very tiny blooms. Look how small the flowers are in comparison to the plant label in the photo. This is the adult, full size plant..... even if you live in a closet, you probably have room for a few of these Sinningias.

How about this Nematanthus corticola? The blooms hang down off of long red structures that will make the flowers look like they were hung off a holiday tree. They are almost ready to show the flower which you can see in the photo still tightly compressed in the center of the calyxes.

This is Sinningia 'Piglet'. It is just about to open, probably within the day. It's a sweet light pink color, which is probably why it is named as it is. The interesting thing about this plant, at least for me, is that it went from sprouted (microscopic) tuber to blooming plant in two months. Who knew that Sinningias were so quick and easy to grow???

I just like this flower. It's a Columnea linearis. The long narrow leaves give it a distinctive look from many of the other Columneas and the pink color of the flower is a bit different also.


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