This begonia is a real beauty. My neighbor, Nancy a/k/a "gardener extraordinaire" gave it to me when it was a wee little plant. Her plant was at least 5' tall and gorgeous. I stuck it in the ground and it is now about 3' tall. I knew it was a begonia but I didn't know its official name until I saw a picture of it in the Aug/Sept issue of Florida Gardening magazine in the article about Valkaria Tropical Gardens. It is called a lotus-leafed begonia (B. nelumbiifolia). It gets a tall spike of creamy white (small) flowers. The flowers pale in comparison to the leaf. As an old-timer greenhouse plantsman once told us, "If the leaf is beautiful then the flower is usually blah!"
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4 comments:
Amazing! Looks pretty big on the picture - but I guess part of it is me being unacustomed to inches :-)
rosengeranium - I should have placed a dinner plate next to the leaf for comparison. You can see by the little impatien leaves in the background how big these begonia leaves really are.
5 feet tall begonias? Mine rarely clear 6 inches. Miracle Grow must work after all! :) Seriously, I'll have to look for that variety. Have you ever seen it in the stores?
wicked gardener...sorry, but I haven't seen it anywhere. I was lucky to get a slip from my neighbor who shops far and wide for unique plants.
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