Tropicals & Tender Perennials: New begonias, 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
The leaves in water act just like they would in soil but with a lot more success. Have you rooted any African violet leaves? It's about the same. Anyway some leaves will develop babies on the stem, others will develop babies on the sinus but eventually anywhere they produce babies (or pups) they will need roots.

I've heard and seen the same thing about cutting across the veins but I haven't had much luck doing it that way. I do have two leaves of curly beefsteak that rotted at the sinus so I trimmed away the rot and placed the leaves back in the cup. Both have rooted at a vein or two but no plantlets yet.

Here is a good example of where some pups originate (at the end of the leaf stem along with the roots). These are two leaves of 'Martin's Mystery' which I had problems keeping and propagating. I finally tried water rooting these two leaves and got 100% success. I lost the two mother plants but these two leaves have gone on and filled a cookie jar. These pictures were from Feb 1, 2006.