Other Gesneriads in Demand - Rechsteineria

Rechsteineria

Here is a pot plant with an excellent future-it will pay you to make its acquaintance. Some specialty houses still list but one rechsteineria, and that under the name of Gesneria cardi-nalis, macrantha, or umbellata. (Taxonomists now include Gesneria and Corytholoma with Rechsteineria.) I have six species of these plants. By ordering seed from several specialty houses, you can obtain a good collection for your own sales list.

This tuberous-rooted gesneriad from Brazil has unusually varied flower forms, but the color range is not great, from pale pink through salmon and yellow to vivid red. The plants are of easiest culture, some varieties blooming several times a year. Of even greater “dollar importance” to me is the fact that these plants will interbreed with some of the sinningias to produce glamorous bigeneric hybrids.

Tubers of rechsteinerias are firm; those of R. cardinalis resembling a sweet potato, the others being more like gloxinia tubers; R. cardinalis has heart-shaped, emerald green, hairy leaves and brilliant red flowers of unusual form. Rechsteineria cyclophylla bears an umbel of bright red 5-petaled flowers. It flowers several times a year, sometimes sending up flower scapes with no leaves. My older specimen plants are never given much rest, while those intended for sale are dried off shortly after they finish flowering.

A 2-year-old tuber can be depended upon to produce hundreds of flowers at blooming time, and the flowers, having good substance, make exciting and unusual corsages. The helmetlike flowers of R. Warszewiczi have lovely salmon-to-lemon coloring, and plants grow to 2 feet. Most of us who hybridize gloxinias would like to work this luscious near-cantaloupe hue into a gloxinia strain. Tubers are the easiest of all gesneriad tubers to store. They can be left in the pots, watered slightly, or left dry; or they can be removed and stored in sand or vermiculite.

A variety of the red-flowered R. purpurea grows in a fascinating way. The glossy, sharply serrated leaves develop in whorls of three, then six. Topping the 18-inch plant are two umbels of rose-splashed tubular flowers, usually about 150 of them at a time. My seed sales from this variety are excellent. But I haven’t exploited the plant since I want to use it in my own hybridization. I know of no seed or bulb house selling these tubers, but that is no drawback since it is easily grown from seed.

Rechsteineria leucotricha or Brazilian edelweiss, has leaves covered with downy silver hair, and light red flowers. The tubers are round and of light orange color in their young state, but as they age they become darker and somewhat gnarled. This species, like R. cyclophylla, will send up flower scapes in advance of the heavy foliage-often without benefit of pot or potting soil. It is easily grown from seed but a bit difficult from cuttings. One firm sells mature plants for as much as $8.00 apiece.

Tags: home greenhouse

Kindly consider linking to this article by just copying and pasting the code below on your website/blog ( press Ctrl+C to copy the entire code). The text link will look on your website like this: Other Gesneriads in Demand - Rechsteineria

<a href="http://www.home-greenhouse-profits.com/other-gesneriads-in-demand-rechsteineria.html">Other Gesneriads in Demand - Rechsteineria</a>