Gorgeous species, with variable foliage. Many of the specimens I’ve seen in cultivation look similar to nigritarum in terms of color, but this particular batch of seeds turned out very silver.

from Three new species of Begonia sect. Baryandra from Panay Island, Philippines.  Ching‑I Peng, Rosario Rivera Rubite, Che‑Wei Lin, Mark Hughes, Yoshiko Kono and Kuo‑Fang Chung. 

“Monoecious rhizomatous herb. Rhizome creeping….leaves thickly chartaceous to succulent, adaxially green, dark olive green to maroon or nearly blackish, variegated with irregular spots of chartreuse, silver grey to whitish…(etymology) Mr. Sy Ka Kieng, patriarch of a Chinese family who has supported R. Rubite’s field trips… Provisional IUCN category: Following the Red List criteria of the IUCN (2012), we consider Begonia sykakiengii to belong to the Endangered category under criteria B2ab(iii) [(a) severely fragmented or known to exist at no more than fve locations; (biii) continuing observed decline in quality of habitat). Tis species is a microendemic, restricted to a single cave which is not in a formally protected area. Te site is surrounded by rice felds and habitation, and grafti at the cave entrance indicates the site is already disturbed.”

For anyone interested in breeding, the Somatic chromosomes at metaphase were determined to be 2n = 28, and this plant is in the Baryandra section.

Available seedlings are nearly a year old and blooming size in 2″ pots.  The last photo is representative of the plants available.