Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Random plant event: Kalanchoe tomentosa flower

About a month ago, I posted about how my Kalanchoe prolifera has started to make pinnate leaves (which is exciting if you're a plant nerd), and a conversation started up in the comments about Kalanchoes generally, and Sentient Meat made a reference to the flowers of K. tomentosa, calling them "green and brown: masculine, strange and otherworldly."

And then, a month later, I was at the ex-job and there was a K. tomentosa flowering.


Only one of the flowers had actually opened, but I think you can guess from this what it'd look like if they all were.


I've had a bad experience with K. tomentosa in the past (it stayed alive for a long time, but I was never able to provide it with as much light as it wanted, so it got weaker and spindlier the whole time), so this didn't make me want to snatch the plant up and take it home with me so I could have the flowers all to myself. It was certainly new and different, though, and I'm pleased that I got to see it.


4 comments:

Long Haired Lady Rider said...

Yeah, those are really cool flowers.. all that fuzz and everything. Thanks for showing us!

Sentient Meat said...

Cool! And that's even a bit different than the one I was describing, which was the bloom of the 'Chocolate Soldier' and 'Golden Girl' varieties. For some reason, those varieties bloom with a much taller stalk, much narrower flowers, more brown pigment in the flower petals, and the sepals much more recessed (rather than prominent and fuzzy as in these blooms).

These are quite a bit prettier, really. I'm glad you shared them.

Rica said...

What an interesting plant! I've never seen one before. Thanks for sharing!

Tere Ynadamás said...

Lovely! I have K. tomentosa also and now I hope that it blooms soon!