African Violets and Gesneriads: Long Distance trade, 1 by begoniacrazii

begoniacrazii wrote:
I just wanted to share this story with you, since the tip might help you in the future.
I have had an ongoing trade with a fine gentleman in Bucharest, Romania. I have mailed him leaves and he has mailed me sinningia speciosa seeds. Some are very exciting hybrids of his own and others are from a well know Australian hybridizer, Charles Lawn. (Believe it or not, I mailed leaves on a Friday, and he had them by Tuesday! Super fast!)

This friend also hybridizes his own AV's and you can view his flickr album with his hybrids here. /photos/15701185@N00/
Several weeks ago, he said he would send me leaves. I was sceptical but agreed since I figured, "nothing ventured, nothing gained'. He mailed them on April 6 and I just received them yesterday! That means they traveled 18 days in the mail to get to me. They arrived rather limp and sad. Some had rot, others were withered up.

I had read in one of my AV books that for wilted leaves, it is sometimes better to lay them between two wet paper towels than to put them in a cup of water overnight or to put the petiole alone in a cup of water.

My personal experience with soaking in warm water for extended periods of time (i.e. longer than a few hours) is that you start to see some mushing occur, and the theory behind the wet towels vs. putting the petiole alone in a cup of water, is that the entire leaf surface can absorb the water where as a petiole alone cannot take in as much as the wilted leaf might need to crisp up.

So I put it to the test with these poor little wilted leaves and today they are crisp and look pretty darn good despite their hard travel and 18 days in an envelope coming from Romania!

Just wanted to share this method of reviving wilted leaves. There are two leaves that I will have to do a bit of cutting on in order to remove the mush, but there is enough leaf to root. In fact I've rooted smaller wedges, so I'm hopeful!!!

Here is a photo of his hybrids, re posted with his permission.