Rooting a single leaf cutting from a fiddle leaf fig

11 years ago

About two months ago, during my fiddle leaf fig pruning/repotting misadventures (long story, but plants appear to have forgiven my mistakes now :-)), I kept a few leaves and tried to root them. I put some in water with rooting hormone and some in perlite with rooting hormone. Now the perlite-rooted leaves have lots of white roots! I am so excited, but now I am wondering... how does this single leaf grow into a plant? I have seen some others' pictures online but all I have seen are cuttings of branches. What I rooted are just single leaves. Can a single leaf figure out how to turn itself into a branch? I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with rooting single fiddle leaf fig leaves. Thanks and happy Spring to everyone!

Featured Answer

tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)

11 years ago

Can a single leaf figure out how to turn itself into a branch? Yes. What's required is that the leaf tissue dedifferentiates and then redifferentiates into meristematic tissue (like STEM cells). From there, it can form any of the tissues/organs the plant requires for normal growth.

That said, I stuck a schefflera leaf in a hole in a lava rock I set in a tray of water. The leaf produced roots within a month, and lived for 3 years (as a leaf with roots) before I got tired of waiting and pitched it.

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Comments (10)

girlonavespa
11 years ago
Following. I would love to do this!
bayareacalifornia
Original Author
11 years ago
Hi girlonvespa! Well if no one enlightens us, I will at least report what happens to my two rooted leaves. :-)
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mark4321_gw
11 years ago
I posted on another thread here that I saw rooted (or rooting) leaves, and a few months later, plants emerging from them. This was in San Mateo, at the Arboretum--this place: http://sanmateoarboretum.org/nursery/

If you are close enough, it's a pretty nice place for finding a plant cheap, and maybe someone there knows more about these leaf cuttings.

Here's a photo:
Sans2014
11 years ago
I've no experience with this plant, but it seams reasonable if it rooted it will become a tree at some point. The leaf will probably atrophy as a plant develops from the area above the roots, but that is just my guess. Sansevieria grow from cuttings in this manner, with the cut leaf dying off at some point as the new plant gets larger.
bayareacalifornia
Original Author
11 years ago
@mark4321_gw Thanks for sharing the pic and the anecdote. I have hope for a little tree to sprout, and I will certainly check out the Arboretum. I had not heard of it before, but from the website it looks great!

@Sans2014 Thanks for the description of the process. Looking at mark's picture I was thinking that the big leaf (maybe the original cutting?) looks like it is getting sucked into the pot! I am excited to see the evolution of my two cuttings. This will be a test of my patience. :-)
Ananda Qianyu
9 years ago

I have written about how to propagate fiddle leaf fig here- https://www.apieceofrainbow.com/fiddle-leaf-fig/

I rooted 4 stem cuttings and 1 leaf, shown above. the leaf did not survive, but i think it is because of competition- i planted it in the same pot as 2 other stem cuttings, which grew rapidly.

the african violet leaves i rooted has grown into plants. what happens is that small bud will grow from the roots and turn into branches. i think FLF works the same =)

https://www.apieceofrainbow.com/grow-african-violet/
tropicbreezent
9 years ago
I think it might be like Hoyas. I kept a Hoya leaf that had sprouted a lot of roots for about 4 years. But it never grew into a plant. Hoyas need part of the stem with the leaf before you'll get a plant.
Ekor Tupai
9 years ago
Organs cells of plants are specialized, ussualy have specific functions and have lost their pluripotent ability. For FLF, pluripotent ability only can be found at meristems tissue, the rest just considered multypotent. They can form root, but no longer able to become a complete plant.
Andrea ME z5b
9 years ago
Al, I did the same with a zz plant leaf about a year and a half ago and it rooted really quickly and is still a single leaf in a pot.... recently I got hold of a couple more broken off leaves and stuck them in the pot with the first, now I have 3 leaves in a pot lol....