Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Random plant event: Breynia disticha

I knew that Breynia disticha (aka B. nivosa) was capable of suckering like this when planted outdoors as a landscape plant, but I didn't expect to see it indoors, on my own personal specimen. I figured my personal plant was probably not happy enough to do that: it's grown fine, but I'm sure it doesn't get as much light as it would prefer, and it has to endure the occasional drought, too.

And yet.


In fact, I noticed last Saturday when I was watering that a second sucker has popped up in the pot, though it is still very tiny and refused to photograph well.

The suckers sprout from the roots and are supposedly pretty easily pulled up, so I'm treating them gingerly for the moment, but suckering is plausibly a better route to propagation than taking cuttings, as long as the plant keeps producing them. Cuttings have only been working for me about 40-50% of the time.


2 comments:

Andrea said...

We have a Breynia nervosa around here, and the leaves look the same as that but reddish in color. I produced some small berries along that small twig.

Unknown said...

That plant is gorgeous. We have some in the university greenhouses. Glad to hear you're getting some suckers.