Paliavana gracilis

1. Feature table
2. External link
3. Publication and etymology

I now have a plant of P. gracilis (but see below). Don't know much about it yet, however, so stay tuned.  With a name like gracilis, it should be pretty good.

Just avoid the temptation to say graCILis.  Accent is on the first syllable: GRAcilis.

Plants grow better when you pronounce their names right. Honest.

Update

Unfortunately, it turns out that the proper pronunciation of the name of this plant is "Vanhouttea lanata".  Even though it did not have lanata's characteristic woolly stems and leafbacks, it did have, when it bloomed in November 2007, woolly calyx lobes and the calyx lobes completely enclosing the developing corolla, a feature characteristic of the V. lanata - V. brueggeri - Paliavana tenuiflora group, and not of P. gracilis, which is a member of the "free calyx lobes vanhouttea clade".  A picture on the Paliavana tenuiflora page shows what is meant by "calyx lobes completely enclosing the developing corolla".  An idea of what the flowerbud would have looked like if the plant were P. gracilis and had free calyx lobes can be seen in a picture on the Vanhouttea pendula page.

It's not impossible the plant label got switched last winter (January-March 2007) when so many of my outdoor plants got moved around to separate the ones which were (or appeared to be) dead after the Five Night Freeze.  However, the only other plant which could be the missing one also has calyx lobes entirely enclosing the corolla and is probably Paliavana tenuiflora.  It should be in bloom in late November, and then I will know for sure.

Feature table for Paliavana gracilis

External Link

For some habitat pictures and information, see the page on Mauro Peixoto's web site.

Publication

Paliavana gracilis was first published by Martius (1829) as Gloxinia gracilis, reclassified as a sinningia by Fritsch in 1894, and transferred to Paliavana by Chautems (2002).

Etymology: Latin gracilis ("slim, slender").  See the pronunciation guide.