Sinningia gigantifolia
- Inflorescence
- Hybridization
- Feature table
- External link
- Publication and etymology
This is Peter Shalit's picture of his plant of
Sinningia gigantifolia "Itatiaia".
He grew it from seed collected by Mauro Peixoto.
At the time of this picture, it was three years old, and was blooming for the first time.
Itatiaia, where this collection originated, is Brazil's oldest national park.
See the
Wikipedia article
for more information.
Peter writes: "Alain describes this location as 2000 M in elevation
and hence this collection has much smaller leaves than the lowland
populations of S. gigantifolia."
He also mentioned that this variety has larger flowers than a previous plant
he grew of this species.
|
|
|
Inflorescence
This shows the inflorescence of Peter's plant.
Each node has a couple of peduncles with one or two
flowers each.
The flowering stem, peduncles, and pedicels are all very dark shiny red, almost black.
It increases the attractiveness of the flowers.
There are small bracts at the nodes.
Photo by Peter Shalit.
|
|
This picture shows a seedling of
Sinningia gigantifolia 'Itatiaia'.
The seed (from Brazil Plants) was sown in September 2010
and this picture was taken on 4 December 2011.
So far these plants seem less temperamental than the previous collection
of this species, which I was not able to keep alive.
|
|
This picture shows the tuber of another seedling from this batch.
As far as I can tell, this is a double tuber of a single plant and not
two separate plants.
The conical tuber projecting above the ground is characteristic of the
'Itatiaia' variety.
Note the nodes scattered over the visible surface of the tuber.
|
As far as I know, Jon Dixon's cross between this species and
S. "Black Hill" is the only gigantifolia hybrid.
Plant Description
|
| Growth |
Indeterminate |
| Habit |
Stem upright, very short when young. Leaves are sometimes alternate leaves (unusual for sinningia), especially when the plant is older. |
| Leaves |
heart-shaped, dark green on top, maroon on back. Bases overlap when young |
| Dormancy |
As of this writing [December 2011], my seedlings do not show any
inclination to go dormant. |
Flowering
|
| Season |
Blooms in late summer |
| Inflorescence |
Terminal peduncle |
| Flower |
Red, tubular |
Horticultural aspects
|
| Hardiness |
A plant outdoors has survived 34 F [1 C] without damage to leaves. |
| Recommended? |
The jury is still out.
If the 'Itatiaia' plant can survive the winter outdoors here,
and bloom like Peter's plant above, then I would definitely recommend it. |
Botany
|
| Taxonomic group |
In a subgroup with S. cochlearis
within the Sinningia clade. |
See also the S. gigantifolia
page
on Mauro Peixoto's web site.
Lindley described this species as Gesneria discolor in 1841.
Alain Chautems transferred this species to Sinningia in 1990, but the name that
would ordinarily have resulted, Sinningia discolor,
was unavailable, because it had already been used for a different plant.
Sinningia discolor was published in 1904 by Sprague,
but this was not the plant Lindley had described, but rather a variety of
what we now know as Sinningia speciosa.
So when Chautems transferred Gesneria discolor to
Sinningia in 1990, he had to assign a new name to this species.
Hence, Sinningia gigantifolia.
Etymology: Latin gigant- ("giant", nom. sing. gigas) +
-folia ("leaf").