Species
B. johnstonii f. johnstonii
Photos
5 photos
Identity
- Genus
- Begonia
- Name
- B. johnstonii f. johnstonii
- Form Variety
- f. johnstonii
- Author
- Oliver ex J. D. Hooker, Bot. Mag.
- Publication Date
- 1866
- Country
- Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika
- Region
- Africa
- Section
- Rostrobegonia
- Chr 2n
- 26
- Plant Type
- Thick Stem
- Reference
- Bot. Mag. 112:pl. 6899. 1886.—Irmscher, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 81:150. 1961; JGSL9/08;
- Article References
- Tebbitt, Begonias 5:160-62. 2005;
- Photo References
- The Begonian, Mar-Apr 1999; Exotica - Pictorial Encyclopedia of Indoor plants;
Plant
- Description
- Curtis's botanical magazine, v. 112 = ser. 3, v. 42, 1886 B. johnstoni: The subject of this plate. is alluded to by Prof. Oliver under his description of B. Johnstoni cited above, which was prepared from a very indifferent specimen of a plant gathered by Mr. Johnston on his expedition to Kilimanjaro, at an elevation of 5000 to 6000 feet on that mountain. Whether the two are quite the same specifically cannot be positively ascertained till better specimens of the Kilimanjaro plant are obtained; meanwhile they agree in too many important points to induce me to pronounce them distinct. The chief differences are, that B. Johnstoni has a blood-red stem, its young leaves are irregularly toothed rather than crenate, the bracts are more acute, the scattered hairs on the under sur face of the leaf are confined to the nerves, and the wing of the fruit is shorter and broader. Add to this that the two come from very far apart localities, the seeds of that here figured having been sent by the late Bishop Hannington from the Masai country, a district far to the north-west of Kilimanjaro (probably from the Usigara Mountains). B. Johnstoni belongs to the Asiatic section of the genus Diploclinium, and differs from most of the African Begonias in the bipartite placentas. For the seeds the Royal Gardens are indebted to Mr. Mitten, A.L.S., of Hurstpierpoint, who received them from Bishop Hannington in 1884; the plants raised from them flowered at Kew in April 1886. Description. A tall, succulent, robust, branched species, twelve to eighteen inches high; stem, branches, petioles, peduncle and pedicels pale watery green with scarlet striae. Leaves long-petioled, four to six inches long, obliquely ovate, acute, coarsely crenate, deeply two-lobed at the lateral base where the rounded lobes overlap, dark green above, paler beneath with soft scattered hairs; nerves radiating from the top of the petiole; petiole as long as the blade, clothed at the top with soft white reversed bristles, which also form a ring round its insertion. Cymes long-peduncled, four- to six-flowered; flowers pale rose-colored, pedicelled, drooping, one or two females in each cyme. Male Flowers: one and a half to two inches in diameter. Sepals four, outer broadly oblong, inner larger, more obovate. Stamens very numerous, filaments free; anthers subglobose. Female flower: smaller. Sepals five, outer obovate-oblong. Ovary three-celled, placentas bipartite; stigmas three, short, united at the base; arms twisted with a continuous papillose band. Capsule three-winged, one wing protruded, upcurved obliquely, triangular-ovate, obtuse. - J. D. H.
Lineage
Parents
No parentage recorded.
Descendants
No recorded descendants.
Culture
No populated fields in this section.