Thanks Rosie. Guess a lot of folks don't grow brevirimosa.

this is what the mother plant looks like.

Oh that is gorgeous! Well, on my Begonia "Wish List" it goes!!! Rosie

Oct. 6:

Between wet paper towels and into a ziploc bag on Oct. 6th, then out Nov. 25th:

Today (a few have been given away):

AND

I just wrote up a detailed procedure for how to do this. I'll post it in this forum when I get a chance. It's a bit long.

I saw your detailed procedure on FB (guess that is you Randy Story?) You could post a link to it for folks already on FB but then they may have to join Planet Begonia too.

Here is one of my brevirimosa I started from leaf back in October.

Another one that didn't grow as fast.

I need to move them to 3 inch pots but I am out of room to put any more trays down.

That's me. Yeah, the problem is I've written it up in various forms on several different forums on Facebook. The one last night was on the All Things Begonia, Buy, Sell and Trade forum: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435544620039844/permalink/1860213810906254/

I've had at least 2 posts in that forum, as well as more complete posts in Planet Begonia, also a long post in Passion for Plant Propagation, and another couple in Streptocarpus; Tropical Plants as Houseplants. Mary S. in Florida (who I expect you know) said she wanted to try it, so my initial goal was to put everything in one place and simplify it. I decided it made more sense to go into detail, all in the same post. I think people could become very frustrated if they tried it, and I left out one or two key things.

Yours look great. I find B. brevirimosa pretty straightforward from intact leaves, rooted in water in room air. However if I chop it up into pieces in an enclosed environment, they quickly get chewed up--fast enough that I suspect something aggressive (bacterial or fungal) came with them, on the leaf itself. From an intact leaf I don't get a huge yield--maybe 5-10 plants. I think I can get 10 times that many this way. They would be faster if I had given them stronger light in the last month or so--too many plants are fighting for prime spots.

I think I told you before that I saw Byron Martin's (Logee's) presentation at the ABS convention 2006 in Miami on tissue culture. Fascinating but too laborious for most everybody. What I took away from that is if a person or lab can get a really clean specimen up and going then all clones after that are super-easy since the true leaves after the lump of cells makes a plant can be used ad infinitum without the cleaning process. So from one clean clone, it is possible to make 10,000 (or more) if you wanted to.

I think I am going to stay with small batches for now but I do like your dedication to pushing the envelope.

I find the propagation fairly easy these days. It's the potting up that is a PITA. Have you got any easy solutions for that?

Doing some philodendrons but they are pushing the lids off.

I had to use a cake lid on this tray.

An empty cube and a spare begonia leaf - yeah, that's the ticket.
Another tray but what to do with the all of them?

No solutions for potting things up, although I'm certainly grateful for cheap pots (6 cents at the hydro store) and 3 ounce cups.

I think sometimes one does not realize how powerful a technique is until one has it in hand. Here are 3 examples just recently:

1) The very first Streptocarpus I propagated is one called 'Blue Frills', from Dibley's in the UK and not commercially available in the U.S. The plant is stunning.

Large plant (bigger than it looks) at a friend's:

My largest plant (from conventional propagation):

Now to suddenly scale up something very hard to find is a plus. I started a leaf, 3 inches x 1.5 inches (upper limit, I forgot to measure), chopped into 17 pieces starting about October 8th.

I've potted up 109 so far, with 38 still attached to leaf pieces (that number is increasing rapidly). Soon I should have 200, I'm guessing. I'm pushing this partly out of curiosity, but it's a good one. The largest plants are quickly approaching blooming size.

2) Mary S. wants to try it because she frequently gets plants after long trips in the mail, where only a small part is still alive. To be able to salvage something from a tiny viable piece--especially if she can quickly make more--would be a big plus. Such an approach is also of value if one can start multiple plants from a small new plant, and does not want to sacrifice an entire leaf.

3) About the same time I heard from Mary, Dale Martens and I figured out that a Sinningia speciosa (Gloxinia) hybrid of hers (the fragrant 'Touch of Spice'--unusual or unique for that type of plant) is likely the same as one I picked up at a local nursery:

I had propagated it, and had a half dozen small plants. However, to suddenly turn that into a lot of plants could be useful. I started some leaf pieces from small leaves (the big plant is dormant) and I saw the first roots within 2 weeks. Hopefully any shortages of this plant can end quickly. Oh, I forgot to say that the plant had been more or less lost--even Dale did not have it, and was looking for it.

All of those examples are just in the last month. I imagine there are other possibilities that I haven't thought about yet.

I ordered 500 3 inch pots a few years back to pot up a lot of my eager beaver propagated begonias. I had some ladies who wanted to help but one or the other always had something that came up so I neglected the trays and lost probably 300 or more. Without a buyer or an end user, it is almost pointless to propagate too many. I still do it for fun but try to do smaller numbers.

How long did it take for your tiny pieces to get to blooming stage? Do you push them or take your time? I know some growers can go from leaf cutting to a four inch pot in six weeks but sometimes they seem a bit small for sale.

None of them have reached blooming sized yet. I'm really constrained by availability of lighting, and I do find that those closest to the lights grow most rapidly. I also know that this hybrids responds really well to fertilizer, and I have not been pushing it.

I'm definitely going to have to end up giving away some of the Blue Frills to local institution(s) . Luckily in the Bay Area there are many, and I already have a lot of contacts at various places.

By the way...if anyone reading this really likes Streps, and noticed that the picture with the razor blade resembles a simple puzzle waiting to happen, I've been curious about how big that leaf actually was. With a razor blade for scale, it could be printed out, pieces cut out (including the razor blade), reconstructed and measured pretty accurately. If someone is up for printing it out and doing that, I'll be giving away a "couple" things for postage for whomever can get there first, responding to a post I'll write in a few minutes on the Gesneriad forum about seeds, cuttings, and plants for postage.

To put it a different way, I wanted to give away a couple Streps, and have been looking for a way to decide where they go. This could make it fun.

I have one strep, period. Guess it will have to do for a while as my primary concern are begonias, then a few dozen other families. Oh to have a 3,000 SF heated GH and the money to run it.

Let us know how many folks enter your challenge. It could be fun to hear all the answers and what the answer is.

Ken Druse showed a way he propagated streps decades ago both on VG(?) and in his book. I tried it but never had any luck.

Speaking of B. brevirimosa, I've grown B. 'exotica' from Mike K. for years and the two plants do appear to be identical (both classified as shrub, not canes). I recall the Begonian magazine had an article with pictures of both these plants from different growers, and they look alike there too. I wonder if there is any definitive opinion on this.. B. 'exotica' was not mentioned in the Smithsonian and the Thompson does not refer to 'exotica' as a cane. Whatever it is, mine grows very happily in a terrarium but has never bloomed.

I think exotica is a subspecies of brevirimosa by all accounts today. I had both at one time and the only difference I could see is one had a green stem and the other had a red stem. Leaves looked identical.

John Boggan has been calling on experts about updating classification of begonias. It's odd that most canes (cane-like) cannot reproduce from a leaf but brevirimosa and amphioxus can? I read on FB that shrubs can root at a flowering node while a cane can not? Weird facts?

This was from Logee's: brevirimosa var. Edinburgh (around 2003)

And exotica from Kartuz probably. Sorry these are such lousy pictures as it was my first (or second digital camera and I couldn't nail the focus)

My newest brevirimosa is in open air of the basement in a pan on the floor near a light and doing wonderful. I try to not water much from the top but add water to the pan for bottom watering. It seems to love this treatment. Excuse the white residue from a recent spray of Orchard Spray (sulfur and pyrethrin)

This was 3 days ago and it is intruding in the space of the Benitochiba which is directly under the lights. The more light it gets, the brighter the leaf color.

My leaf grown brevi is pushing at the top of the 7 inch dome today!

And I put some pieces of an Escargot leaf down a couple of weeks ago and it has already got some new babies.

Another Escargot leaf is pupping at the center.

What a cute little escargo baby! Rosie

HAHA! Aren't they so cute and fuzzy when they first come into the world.

This is what one of the momma leaves looked like yesterday. A double spiral on this leaf.

and two leaves together. Kind of weird that it is the same plant, same light, yet the color is different. Guess the little camera's WB got fooled?

Awwww. Still too cute! Rosie

Still going strong!

3 days ago and looking good!

A Little Brother

Imperialis (or some call Silver Jewel)

Deco Twirl and U400. I don't remember what the green speckled leaf is. I see Silver Queen in there too.
A Red Fred and others in this tray
Same tray showing all in it.

Meanwhile the mother plants are showing new leaves like Mr. Hunt

3 red rexes with Fire Breathing Dragon on the right
I am trying a bonsai dish with a honking big Selph's Mahogany. This took a lot of patience to get it from a bare rhizome to this size.
Some U489 (white leaves), Deja Thorus (pink leaves), U633 (green with white splashes), Mrs. Thurman is the big green leaf peeking in the bottom left corner.

Is brevimosa difficult to grow?

I grow it outside 9 months of the year, with no special care. It does fine. I'm on the SF peninsula, about 25 miles South of San Francisco, with a similar climate except about 10 degrees warmer in the summer. It is more tender than most Begonias, and I need to take it inside in the winter. Most Begonias I can leave outside.

Tim,

I used to have the most difficult time keeping it through winter in Atlanta. I think it was all my fault though since I probably kept it too wet. I even thought it needed more humidity so I stuck it inside a small fish tank. That didn't help either. This year I have it in a pan on the floor next to a stand of lights. I typically add water to the pan instead of the pot so I hope I eliminated the overwatering. It is doing wonderful in this situation but I don't want to count my chickens too early - we still have probably 3 months before I move it outside. Outside it is prone to the vagaries of wind, falling debris from trees, squirrels, and dogs (GRRR). Do you know what is worse than a squirrel around your pots? A 90 pound dog chasing that squirrel. So the leaves can be tattered by the time I bring it back inside for winter but hopefully it has put on lots of new growth and is vigorous for another winter in a pan on the floor next to a stand of lights.

This is the mother plant. The white residue is sulfur. There are two limbs not in the photo.

One of the limbs extending into the pot of Benitochiba

Stunning colors on the plant. What I’ve read says to not to overwater. I’m temptes to order it but I think I’ll try an few others first. It will, however, stay on my list.

Ask me in May how it worked out. So far I'm very pleased with the results this time around.

And I'm glad I tried propagating it by leaf after all these years.

Here is a shot of it earlier today (the part directly under lights).

Also saw a couple visitors in one of my pots of Chirita 'Moon Walker'
Time for some winter blooms too - a double red camellia

A single red


Looks like the Okame Cherries will start opening any day as well. Crazy plants!

I was tempted to put my big Begonia brevirimosa outside a couple weeks ago, when we were in the middle of a long stretch of highs in the 70s (unusual for us now). However, Monday is supposed to be 53/39, which is probably a little too cool for this one.

I know I'm reviving and old thread but maybe someone is listening :)

@mark4321_gw I'm amazed you keep your brevirimosa outside for 9 months of the year. I wish I could do the same but I live in Pacifica, where it's cooler than you... more like SF. Maybe I can put it outside for just the summer months? What do you think?