Sinningia leucotricha

ENGLISH: Brazilian edelweiss

Description: Sinningia leucotrichaSN|22905]]SN|25359]] is a tuberous herbaceous perennials with silvery-white furry foliage and large, powerfully fragrant tubular red-orange flowers. Plants upright about 30 cm tall and 35 cm wide. This species is one of several South American gesneriads which are borderline succulents, caudiciforms, or waterplants with large fleshy tubers and is often cultivated by cactus and succulent enthusiasts as a caudiciform.
Tuber: Perennial, flattened spherical, apex sunken, 6-10 (or more) cm in diameter with light brown bark, fleshy but solid and partially exposed above ground. The tuber is a storage organ that allows the plant to survive periods of drought, cold or other conditions inhospitable to growth.
Annual stems: About 10 cm tall, completely deciduous, stumps remain on tuber. The stem growth habit is determinate (the branch stems ends with 2 or 3 leaf-pairs or flowers and is unable to grow further )
Leaves: In whorls of 4(-6), ovate, up to 15 long and 10 cm wide, silvery-white densely covered bay silky hairs.
Flowers: Bright salmon red in clusters of 3-5 in leaf-axils or at the ends of stems, growth similar to Sinningia cardinalisSN|25359]]SN|22905]] but sometimes sends up a central stalk with leaves and flowers in terminal cluster on top. Flowers nodding, short-lived. Calyx-lobes tapering from a triangular base. Corolla-tube narrowly tubular to cylindric, variously whitish hairy. Calyx 3 cm pink to orange to red, dark purple with brown-black lines at throat: lobes almost equal. Disc-glands 2.
Blooming season: Spring to early summer. Despite their tubers these plants, under ideal conditions, are capable of blooming off and on all through the year. Tubers may flower without planting.