Gesnerium family

 

The gesnerium family includes 150 genera, and has a total of more than 3,200 species, distributed mainly in subtropical, less often temperate climates. Most of them are perennial plants: grasses, creepers, shrubs, shrubs, even small trees.

In room culture, the family is represented by abundantly flowering plants. The advantage of gesneriaceae is their wide variety (for example, dozens of varieties of senpoli and gloxinium have been bred and continue to appear); many of them are compact in size, which allows you to keep a whole collection at home, as well as multiply quite easily. An important advantage is that gesnerium easily hibernate in indoor conditions, if provided with enough light and protected from hot dry air.

СенполияКолерияДримония

Gesnerium, according to the type of root system, are divided into three groups: plants with rhizomes, scaly rhizomes and tubers. Gesneriaceae with tubers need a dormant period in winter, during which the tubers are stored in dry sand in a cool (but not cold) place. Rhizome gesnerium can also have a pronounced dormant period, during which rhizomes are stored in sand, but occasionally moistened.

Another classification of the gesnerium family is determined by morphological and biogeographic plant differences. The entire family is divided into two main subfamilies: the Cirtandroideae subfamily (species native to the Old World - Europe, Asia and Africa) and the Gesnerioideae Gesnerioideae subfamily (species native to the New World - America), since 2008 the third subfamily has been assigned to the same family - Coronanterium Cores onantherioideae, its few species are common in Australia and the Pacific Islands

The name of the family was given in honor of Conrad Gessner, a Swiss doctor, botanist, scientist who created the five-volume encyclopedia Historiae animalium (1551-1558), which formed the basis of modern zoology, the first descriptions of flowering plants from Hesnerium were also present here.

The appearance of the representatives of the gesnerium is quite diverse: their stems can be erect, creeping, ampel (hanging), the leaves are almost always whole, in many genera and species on short petioles (petioles are shorter than leaves), opposite, sometimes in whorls, or spirally.

The flowers are bisexual, solitary or in loose inflorescences. The calyx consists of four to five sepals, green or colored, they are usually separate, sometimes fused into a tube. Corolla five-lobed, less often four-lobed, usually fused at the base into a tube. The tube may be flat, as in Saintpaulia Saintpaulia, or elongated, as in Sinningia Sinningia. Sometimes the corolla is two-lipped, consisting of upper and lower lobes of different sizes, as in Columnea Columnea. In most gesnerium flowers are adapted for pollination by insects or birds (hummingbirds), but some are capable of self-pollination (streptocarpus). The ovary is also upper in the Cirtandra, in the Gesneriev subfamily it is usually semi-lower or almost lower. The fruit is a box, sometimes a berry. The seeds are numerous, small, with a direct germ, with or without endosperm.

РитидофиллумРамондаКолумнея славная

Most species of gesnerium come from moist tropical forests, where they grow in light partial shade of trees, where it is warm and humid air, some gesnerium grow in the undergrowth along rivers, streams, waterfalls. Epiphytes grow on mossy tree trunks or moist rocky places where morning and evening fogs and intermittent rains are frequent. Some species grow in areas with pronounced alternation between dry and wet periods. In these cases, they have organs that store moisture - tubers (in synningia) or scaly rhizomes (in coleria, gloxinium).

Gesnerium care

For the success of the culture of most gesnerium, certain conditions are required.

  • The warm content and the winter minimum for most of them is 17-18 ° C, but there are plants among them, for the flowering of which a winter temperature drop to 12-13 ° C is necessary (for example, streptocarpus
    • ).
  • They require a place shaded from the hot spring and summer sun, the light should be bright and diffused. In winter, natural light may not be enough if the plant stands, for example, on the east or north window, while the rosettes of the leaves become loose, and the shoots are extended, the leaves sit on too long cuttings, the new leaves are small.
  • Gesneriaceae love moist air, but getting water on the leaves is not desirable for them. It is better to place pots with plants on pallets with wet pebbles. You can spray, for example, on very hot days in the summer, but only if the plant stands in the shade, and, using a very small sprayer, moisten the air around the plants, and not spray the leaves themselves.
  • Water plants with warm or room temperature, preventing waterlogging or drying out of an earthen coma.
  • For most gesnerium, you can offer a standard soil mixture of: 1 parts of light turf, 2 parts of sheet earth and 1/2 parts of sand. In any case, the soil must be air and moisture permeable and have a slightly acidic reaction. For gesnerium - epiphytes, it is very important to add baking powder to the ground: vermiculite, coconut substrate (cut coconut fiber or coconut chips), you can add finely broken pine bark, pieces of charcoal. Although there are exceptions to this rule too, for example, three species of Ramonda Ramonda grow both in shady moist forests and in completely drying rocky gorges on limestone. At the same time, they have a rare feature for flowering plants (the so-called poikilohydria) - in the dry period, being in an almost air-dry state, literally a herbarium, after moistening they resume their vital activity.
  • Almost all gesnerium do not like too large pots for planting, in such containers, after copious watering, the roots easily rot.
Gesneriye

By the way

Gesnerium, like all heat-loving plants, are very sensitive to sudden temperature changes and cold drafts.

Spraying before airing, or watering flowers on the balcony or terrace during cold nights, is especially dangerous.

Фиалки переохлаждение

By the way

Gesneria are propagated by seeds, nodules, leaf cuttings, children (separation of daughter rosettes) and division of rhizomes. Usually, the reproduction of Hesneria is not particularly difficult, but it has its own characteristics.

For example, the length of the petiole of a senpolia leaf cut off for rooting depends on the success of its rooting. Long petioles easily rot, rooting does not occur. In addition, only the tip of the petiole should be immersed in water, no more than 5 mm.

By the way

Most of the problems of growing gesnerium are associated with a violation of the irrigation regime, excessive dryness of the air and a lack of lighting in winter.

Other problems of cultivation include burns on leaves from the direct sun, yellow spots on leaves when using cold water for irrigation, or when water gets on them.

Gesnerium can also be affected by thrips (and it has been noticed that, for example, varieties of Uzambar violets with blue leaves are more susceptible to attack by thrips than others), ticks and mealybugs.

By the way

Gesneria, due to the fact that they are kept in conditions of rather high humidity, are prone to diseases such as powdery mildew, gray rot, fusarium, stem rot and late blight.

Фиалки большой горшок

To avoid such troubles, try to ventilate the room more often, while protecting plants from a direct draft. Do not put plants crowded, do not plant in too large pots, make sure that the soil is loose, breathing.

Do not allow long drying of the soil after watering (too dense, heavy soil dries for a long time), or drying of moisture on the leaves after spraying.

Remember that in nature, where most gesnerium grows, most often the air is humidified from fog - a dust-like water suspension in the air, and not from rain.