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The name "curtiflora" means "short flower", and that's no misnomer. The flowers are just about 1 cm long [less than half an inch]. See the flower size comparison. There can be a hundred of them on a stalk, however.
It might be possible to get the flower count in other plants by hybridizing with S. curtiflora. S. curtiflora x tubiflora should be interesting, although not easy to do because of the difference in pollen-tube lengths.
Dan Tomso grows S. curtiflora in the ground in North Carolina, where it is very vigorous and tends to overgrow nearby plants. I grow it in large tubs, where it demands a lot of water. My attempts to grow it in the ground have not been successful. It survives the winter just fine, but evidently doesn't like my dirt.
| Plant Description | |
|---|---|
| Attribute | Information |
| Growth | Indeterminate |
| Habit | Stems upright from tubers which spread on runners underground |
| Leaves | Green |
| Dormancy | Stems fully deciduous, multiple tubers. Dormancy is obligate. |
| Flowering | |
| Attribute | Information |
| Inflorescence | extended axis |
| Season | Blooms in late summer |
| Flower | Red, tubular, very short, numerous |
| Horticultural Aspects | |
| Attribute | Information |
| From seed | 29 months to bloom, under my conditions |
| Hardiness | Has survived 30F (-1C) in my yard. |
| Recommended? | Yes: easy to grow, lots of bright flowers -- but small! (The flowers, not the plant.) |
| Botany | |
| Attribute | Information |
| Taxonomic group | The tall-or-sticky group of the Corytholoma clade. |
There is a picture of Sinningia curtiflora tubers.
When grown from seed, S. curtiflora positions its tubers well down into the soil. This indicates that the tubers should be planted beneath the soil line, which is typical of most sinningias which grow in full sun. When we saw it in 1999, dozens of plants were growing together in a thick stand, with the stems, more than a meter [3 ft] high, supporting one another. This was in Brazilian autumn, so the plants were loaded with seed, from a few of which my plants are descended.
Chautems, 1990.
Etymology: From Latin curtus ("short") + -flora ("flower"). The usual Latin adjective for "short" is brevis; curtus has secondary meanings of "gelded" and "circumcised", being derived from the root meaning of "cut".