Yes, I would root a tip cutting and see what happens. I bet you will get a short plant in flower. I have recently been taking tip cuttings of a few things and rooting them under lights with good results. You can even experiment with all three tips, rooting under a dome or enclosed in a ziplock. My suspicion is, that this technique could be widely used to get really nice compact little flowering plants--i.e. perfect show plants.....

Kohlerias are known to be very easy to root when in bud. I did this with 'Jester' and now have a 3" tall plant with lots of buds and its first flower open. I plan to do lots of experiments this spring with kohlerias and others to see what happens. For the kohleria I rooted it in regular mix in a 2 1/2" pot under a 6" high community dome. Lately I have been having better luck rooting in pots under the domes than in individual ziplocks. My theory of the moment--you can't reroot tips from gesneriads too often!

Diastema are shade loving denizens of the forest floor. So, low light, high humidity, even moisture, even temperature. I have a friend whose greenhouse is in the coolest, foggiest location in the area, and he has diastema coming up like weeds in his greenhouse. Nice weeds though.

Jon

Thanks, Jon. I'll try some cuttings. I think the lower leaves must have been hidden under the S. speciosa which I had also forgotten about. Love these propagation domes and boxes but it so easy to forget about them.

This one is growing on me (no, I never got around to taking tip cuttings).