Plant of the day is: Medinilla succulenta
This is a genus that I ran across recently as there are a few species at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. If you go hunting, you can find M. magnifica, M. scortechinii, M. cummingii, and M. myriantha in the Climatron for the first two and in the Kemper Center for Home Gardening Building for the second two. REALLY worth hunting down for a look, especially if you can catch them in flower, they have a fantastic inflorescence.
Taxonomy, etc.: This particular species is a bit difficult to find information on, so bear with me. Firstly, there are no commons images available so the featured images highlight a few other species of the genus. Medinilla is a member of the Melastomataceae family which contains another neat looking plant I've recently growth called Osbeckia chinensis (also with showy pink flowers). I've also been lucky enough to collect some wild Rhexia here in Missouri. Otherwise there are about 197 genera that I've largely never heard of, some work to do in that family. Melistomes, as they say, have opposite decussate leaves. Don't worry, I had to look it up. Decussate means shaped like an X or intersecting to form an X. Flowers are perfect (which means it has stamens and carpels) and borne singly as in Osbeckia or in a paniculate cyme like the pictured Medinilla here. For the downright absurdly nerdy, the seven genera of Memcylaceae have been merged into Melastomaceae. Fascinating. Truly fascinating.
Only around 70 ACCEPTED species according to the plant list. This species is actually listed as unresolved but that doesn't mean it is not a species. I can't really find a reference in theplantlist.org OR tropicos for other synonyms so this plant is ....yeah ...tough.
Genus named by Carl Ludwig von Blume, a German - Dutch botanist who worked at the Rijksherbarium at Leiden. Say that five times fast. Dare ya.
Description: M. succulenta is a rare, small, compact shrub from Indonesia. It has lime-green foliage and grows to a height of about 50 cm in height. Leaves look to be fairly glossy from the few pictures I can find, which seems to fit the bill based on its habitat. Can likely be an epiphytic plant or a terrestrial plant. The leaves look borderline succulent which is likely a reason for the species designation. The bottom line here is that I can't even find a description for this plant. All the main culprit sides for descriptions are blank. Guess there is some work to do... Also from the pictures it looks like it may be cauliflorous or flowering directly on the stem/wood (possibly at the nodes?).
Culture: I CAN give some insight into this as M. magnifica is a fairly available houseplant. Watering and care requirements should be pretty similar for both species. The plant prefers to dry out quite a bit between waterings. Plant in a well drained media (some bark will help) that doesn't compact too much. Remember the whole epiphyte thing? Likely doesn't enjoy heavy clay soils. It apparently likes moist soils but that is just from one reference. M. magnifica likes to dry out a bit between waterings so...keep an eye on it and read the plant. It'll talk to you if you listen. Obviously not frost hardy, indoors only. I did find a specific note for M. succulenta that it benefits from some tip pruning. The berries are produced on older wood though, so don't cut back too hard. Supposedly can produce flowers/berries throughout the year so it would make a fantastic houseplant.
I want one.
No comments:
Post a Comment