This pretty Melastomaceae has freckled leaves and a tendency to create little beads of moisture on its leaf surfaces. At first it may look like pest damage, but it is not. Other Melastomes sometimes to this as well, including Monolena primulifolia. C. sessifolia can develop into a small bush around 18″, but is easy to trim back to a smaller
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This Melastomaceae hails from China and only reaches 7-8 inches. It is easy to grow and well suited to terrarium culture, although it may be able to survive in an open-air environment. It slightly resembles Peperomia, with its rounded leaves and rosette-forming habits. New growth is bright red, and older leaves are dark green. All leaves possess white spotting along
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This genus has only recently started to become available out of Asia, and offers some excellent species for the terrarium. This one has reached 6″ or so for me, It’s possible it could reach a larger size with time, and based on its growth habit I think it stays very small. Plants flower readily when they have 4-6 leaves. The
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Arthrostemma parvifolium is a a Melastome that occurs from Mexico to El Salvador, and is wonderfully suited to terrarium culture. It often stays under 12″ but can get at least 18″ in some growing conditions. It forms a small bush and beautiful pink magenta flowers that are easy to pollinate and produce a lot of seed. The seed pod and
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This plant has been sold in Asia under the name ‘versicolor red and black’, however, I have not seen any evidence to confirm it as versicolor. It is a newer species to cultivation, whatever it is. It does resemble versicolor in the compact growth habit, but it grows its rhizome in more of a trailing way than other versicolor forms.
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Most rhizomatous species when kept indoors (and kept on a natural photoperiod) tend to bloom over the winter. The species below were mostly grown from leaves this past Fall, so are on a different rhythm than the rest of the plants. Begonia ignita, with its strange orange male flowers. It produces many flowers at once, with an incredible amount of
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This past fall I started collecting seeds from some of my Begonias, something that I would not have been able to do without the help of Randy Kerr and Stephanie Willis. So, thank you both, for all your help and patience! I’m awful at following directions, so am especially grateful for the help that I have received within the Begonia
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This is a Begonia collected in Jalau, a small town in Sarawak (Borneo). It has been making the rounds in Asia for the past year or two but has not been sold in number in the United States. It is a taller species that is prone to falling over when it reaches a certain height (the magic number for my
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This Begonia was hybridized by Freda Holly, a longtime Begonia keeper and an excellent hybridizer. She has written many articles for the American Begonia Society as well as a book titled ‘Begonia Hybridizing by the Begonia hybridizers.’ This is far and away my favorite hybrid of all time, of any genus of plant. It doesn’t look like a hybrid to
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Begonia promethea (syn. beccarii) was originally discovered in 1906 by Henry Ridley, who said that it was “perhaps the most worthy of cultivation among the Bornean species.” More than 100 years since it’s discovery, it was rediscovered by Michael Lo (who posts about his forays on facebook and instagram). Promethea and beccarii are now synonymous, and, per the etiquette of
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Matthew at Another World Terraria was kind enough to show me his collection when I was in Seattle this winter. He specializes in plants that stay under six inches tall, and, amazingly, has filled up an entire house with these tiny plants. I took some photos but, Matthews are better, so I will mostly be using photos he took 🙂
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This species was newly described in 2014 and occurs throughout Western Amazonia in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. It grows in small patches (10-15 plants) in shady areas of mature forest. The epithet erytranthus refers to the red flowers. Due to drilling in Yasuni park where this plant occurs its conservation status has been suggested by its founder to be redesignated to NT.
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