Vanhouttea brueggeri

1. What the calyx lobes tell us
2. Leaf arrangement
3. Vanhouttea brueggeri in habitat
4. Hybridization
5. Feature table
6. External link
7. Publication and etymology

The best of the vanhoutteas.

I came home from Gesneriad Society convention in Rochester, New York, to find two flowers open on my plant.  This picture was taken the next day, 11 July 2006.  The plant was grown from seed sown in early 2003.

This picture shows the distinctive reddish-brown stem, which helps to distinguish it from the related Vanhouttea calcarata when not in bloom.

The new species V. brueggeri was described by Alain Chautems in a 2002 paper.  It grows in Minas Gerais state of Brazil, near the border with Rio de Janeiro state, at an altitude of 1400-1600 m (ca. 5000 feet).  Some plants "were observed growing in pure quartzite sand" (Chautems).

This plant took three years to bloom from seed, but it is likely I could have gotten it to bloom a year earlier by pushing it along harder.  The flowers are very nice, the only drawback being that they hang vertically downward, like those of V. pendula and Sinningia sellovii.  The plant seems to require no special care, and was smaller when it bloomed for the first time than were V. lanata, V. pendula, and V. calcarata at their first flowering.

The plant which bore the flower at the top of the page was killed by the freeze of January 2007, when temperatures fell to around 28 F [-2 C] five nights in a row.  Fortunately, I had an indoor plant as backup.

We have a page showing a comparison of the leaves of four vanhouttea species.

What the Calyx Lobes Tell Us

We note from this picture that V. brueggeri does not belong to the free-calyx-lobes vanhoutteas, since, as in V. lanata, the valvate sepals (calyx lobes) are joined to enclose the developing flowerbud.

In the Chautems paper cited above, he mentions the "calyx with keeled sutures at base".  In this picture, we can see these ridges between the calyx lobes of the flowerbud.  Such ridges are particularly prominent on the flowerbuds of Paliavana tenuiflora

Leaf arrangement

This picture shows two seedlings of V. brueggeri.  The one on the left has the opposite leaves typical of the species.  The one on the right has whorled leaves (three per node).

A list shows the other sinningia-tribe species which usually or sometimes exhibit whorled leaves, but none of the others are in the Sinningia clade that includes V. brueggeri.

In this species, at least, the whorled leaves are probably a developmental quirk, and not an inheritable trait.  The parent of the seedling on the right had normal two-per-node leaves.  On the other hand, it is not a result of unnatural conditions in cultivation either.  The picture (below) of V. brueggeri in habitat shows one stem (bottom right) having whorled leaves.

Vanhouttea brueggeri in habitat

This picture, kindly provided by Alain Chautems, shows how V. brueggeri grows in the wild.  It shows that the species is not a heavy bloomer, having just a few flowers per stem.  The most interesting feature is that the stems are growing through and under grass, poking through the grass in a few places.  This could explain the tendency of this species (and the related V. lanata) toward bare stems with a tuft of leaves at the top, since the stems appear to be prostrate and overgrown by other plants.

Hybridization

The DNA data suggest that Sinningia hirsuta is not too far from V. brueggeri, so this year I put pollen from S. hirsuta onto V. brueggeri and vice versa.  Time will tell whether anything comes of this.  Crossing V. brueggeri with V. lanata should also be interesting.

I'd cross it with V. calcarata, which has nice foliage, but it's hard to do hybridization with foliage.

Feature table for Vanhouttea brueggeri

External link

Publication

Chautems (2002) [see above].