WHAT'S LOOKING EXOTIC IN 2017

I find that hoya leaf cutting interesting @PeterS .

I've, on occasions, rooted both H. carnosa and H. bella leaves, but never managed to get a shoot from either.
Never realised Calathea had flowers like that.

 

I didn't know you could do leaf cuttings of Hoya - but then I don't know much about Hoyas. Whilst it was very cheap, it must be money for old rope - pull off a few leaves and put them in a tiny pot, and sell them for a couple of quid. Mind you I did give it a surreptitious pull to see if it had rooted - I think it had. The compost is dry, but I read that you shouldn't water it till you can see new growth. I suspect most get watered and rot.

I have your Hoya 'Bella' cuttings on a heat pad and under a light, but I am not that hopeful. I think that its the wrong time of the year - but we will give it a go. There will be plenty of material for cuttings in the spring.

 

I think I had one H. carnose leaf in a pot for 4 yrs, it never put up a shoot even thogh it had rooted
Had similar with Columnea.

No worries on the H.bella cuttings, I can wait.
But thanks very much for trying.

 

I've been had

Pete - after your comments I Googled Hoya leaf cuttings and found this :-

The problem is that, as a gardener, you expect this rooted leaf to grow into plant, right? That, when you bring it home and lovingly care for it, it will one day grow new stems, more leaves and – who knows? – maybe even flowers.

If so, you’ll be severely disappointed. Because the leaf will probably never produce a new stem or other leaves. In the rare case in which it does, that can take years. It usually can’t, because neither the leaf or its petiole has any dormant bud from which new stems can grow. This is called a blind cutting.

Your blind leaf can live for years without growing and without changing: a sort of horticultural living dead (not much of a Valentine’s Day symbol, is it?). After 4 or 5 years, if you continue to take care of it (and its needs are fairly minimal: a sprinkling of water every now and again will suffice and of course, no fertilizer is ever needed), it will simply die one day, having lived out its leafy life.

Very occasionally, a love leaf will, after some 7 to 10 years, put out a stem. That’s because a tiny bit of stem was torn off with the leaf and that did include a small dormant bud. But most hoya leaf cuttings are simply blind.

Very interesting - I had never heard of blind cuttings.

 

That is probably why my leaf cutting never grew years ago! Very, very interesting. Thanks for that Peter. I wonder if there are other similar plants.

 

As I said this was new to me. The same site said :-

Hoyas aren’t the only plants with with leaves that root and never produce a stem. There is a surprising number of plants whose leaves you can coax into rooting, but that will go no further. Several Ficus species, for example, such as the rubber plant (Ficus elastica) and the fiddle-leaf fig (F. lyrata), produce blind leaves. On Facebook forums, I often see thrilled indoor gardeners marveling over the leaf cuttings they took of a rubber plant: “Look,” they crow, “my leaf has roots!” They all look forward to the huge and beautiful rubber plant it will one day become, but they are going to be bitterly disappointed. No plant will ever grow from a rubber plant leaf cutting. A stem cutting, sure, but not a leaf cutting. It too will live on for years, then die for no apparent reason. Such is the way of blind leaves.

One thing I have learnt is that every time you find an answer, it often raises a new question. If a Hoya leaf doesn't have any growing points - how did it produce roots?

 

Ahh, well my guess is that roots are formed directly from a stem, often from a callous that forms when a stem is cut, and can form from any part of stem or cut tissue.
Top growth can only form from dormant buds, so no dormant buds, no shoot.

But then again, you can grow Saintpaulia and other related plants from a rooted leaf stem, likewise some succulents.

Maybe they are plants that grow from a central crown, and the leaf stalk is able to form a small crown from which growth buds can form.

We need a botanist.

 

Hi Shiney, I think your plant is a Kalanchoe macrantha var. marmorata ...

Kalanchoe macrantha var. marmorata

Not sure, but could your tree be a Yellow Bauhinia?

yellow Bauhinia - Yahoo Image Search Results

 

Shiney - that's interesting about Hoya rooting in water. I am trying some in water at the moment, but I think its too cold at present. It doesn't matter there is plenty of material to have another go in spring.

 

Could it be a kapok tree @shiney

Taking a second look, I'm not so sure.

Ceiba insignis perhaps

 

I think light is very important as well as heat.