Saturday, August 20, 2011

Medinilla scortechinii (?)

The largest specimen I have seen for this SE Asian native was actually grown in a botanical garden in Europe. It was a tall shrub smothered with inflorescence.
Most plants offered locally are grown in 12" pots with only 1 or 2 inflorescence and I have no idea they could be so spectacular. Its possible also they could be cooler grower and hence less vigorous in the lowland.

Like its relative Medinilla magnifica, the inflorescence are pendulous while the wild species in a previous post are errect. Another obvious difference is the leaf shape, and possibly the leaf venation of which I was unable to observe in detail due to inaccessability of the wild plants.



Addenda
As pointed out by Mr Luther which I later verified from a quick search, Medinilla scortechinii has orange inflorescence so this plant was obviously mislabelled in the garden. I do not have any keys to Medinilla identification, so I can only offer possible IDs - pendula and speciosa being two of them.
Cheers.

5 comments:

islaverde said...

check out Med miniata

Hermes said...

I've seen it blooming at Kew and I just love that first picture.

hypnosis benefits said...

Great snapshots and photography!

Frédéric Coursol said...

Probably Medinilla cummingii....

chris u said...

The whorled petiolate leaves and terminal inflorescences identify it as medinilla pendula a species from the philippines and probably the easiest and commonest species in cultivation

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