To spend some time away from orchids and carnivorous plants (all doing well, thanks). I’ve spent some time recently looking at begonias. Not the flowery types, more usually seen in grandmas garden but the rhizomatous types that make interesting and unusual house plants. My first adventure lead to begonia pavonina which will feature in a later post, but as I’m growing that from seed, I decided to go and buy a couple of species to get my collection (it always turns into a collection sooner or later) started.
One of these was begonia soli-mutata the ‘sun change’ begonia. This species is a relatively recent discovery. It was featured in 1981 in the magazine of the American Begonia society as species U003 before being named as soli-mutata. It was introduced into cultivation thanks to Roberto Burle Marx a landscape architect in Rio de Janeiro who was among the first voices speaking up for preservation of Brazilian rainforest and its species.
The species has creeping short horizontal stems spreading outward. The petioles (stems) are green with a pink tinge and woolly hairs. The leaves are green/brownish with light green veins and postulate short hairs.
The species common name ‘sun change’ literally comes from the fact that the leaves can change colour depending how intense the light is. The structures in the leaves that contain chlorophyll; the chloroplasts, change orientation in order to capture more light. They align vertical as sunlight increases and horizontal as it decreases. This movement affects the colour of the leaves. In bright light conditions the leaves lighten and become light green/brown/redish. In darker conditions the leaves become a much darker green. This change happens within 10 minutes becoming more pronounced as time passes.
Its clear to see in the pictures below – of the same leaf, same angle same background but taken about 30 minutes apart.
