Bill -

violetbarn.com/chirita.htm has a good selection. Tamiana is a most floriferous and the easiest. I think Chirita gemella is quite small, otherwise they are the size of a standard to large violet. There are very pretty stripy leaf Chiritas - Piccolo, Nimbus. There are silver spotted leaf chiritas - like Chirita sinensis. I think sinensis and it's hybrids are mostly large.

Here is a lot of pretty chiritas pics on GesneriadWeb.

I like Chirita Stardust - it is compact, grows very symmetrical - and it blooms a lot.

Good luck

Irina

Here is a link that might be useful: GesneriadWeb

Seems to me it's kinda unusual that the different vendors each seem to have different chiritas. Lauray of Salisbury has a different selection from Rob's Violet Barn (Lauray doesn't have pictures) and I have gotten plants, including chiritas, from both and was very pleased. Kartuz has good pictures, and I've heard they're more reliable than they sometimes were in the last few years. They have some different ones too, and I think I shall be ordering from them soon. I really like chiritas!

You could also leave the chiritas and go into Petrocosmea minor, which never get larger than a semi mini violet and are as easy as pie to raise. I have one now that is in bloom.

Nancy

There are quite a few chirita species and hybrids out there, but since most of them are so new to cultivation it can be hard to track them down.

The smallest Chirita aside from C. tamiana (which is quite atypical for a Chirita and may not even belong in the genus) is probably C. gemella, followed by its slightly larger hybrids 'Little Dragon' and 'Jade Moon'. Chirita sp. USBRG 98-083 (an unnamed species or possibly a natural hybrid from Vietnam, and the other parent of the aforementioned hybrids) grows a bit bigger than these. All of these will spread a bit because they produce stolons, especially 98-083. C. longgangensis is another wonderful small-growing species, although it does tend to produce branches or suckers. C. spadiciformis and C. fimbrisepala are relatively small-growing, do not produce stolons and rarely sucker so they form compact rosettes. The others can be kept to single crowns by removing the suckers or stolons, but most people grow them multicrowned.

All of these are very easy to grow but unlike C. tamiana they will not bloom continuously; they tend to be seasonal bloomers and will go dormant in the winter. And do not overpot, overwater, or overfertilize! Many chiritas will stay compact and bloom best if they are potbound, kept a bit on the dry side and given very little fertilizer. I have seen some grown on wicks that are enormous, to twice the size of the same plants when I grew them, often with beautiful foliage but these specimens tend to bloom poorly.

Thanks to Irina, Greenelbows,Nancy and JohnnyB, I got a lot of nice information. I decided to have a try at Petrocosmea as well as a few Chiritas that were mentioned. If I do make a mistake, I still will learn a lot of information along the way.
Bill