Kalanchoe Bracteata

Kalanchoe bracteata has attractive silvery-grey leaves and forms a small open shrub over time with leaves year-round. In spring and summer this plant blooms with orange-red cruciform flowers. The plant can become leggy with age, but can be pruned to create a more dense growth pattern. As per ICN: BRACTEATA Scott Elliot, 1891 (engl./ fr.) Synonyms : Kalanchoe nadyae Hamet (1907) Kalanchoe ebracteata Scott Elliot ex Jacobsen (1954) Kalanchoe bracteata ssp. glabra var. longisepala Boiteau ex Allorge-Boiteau (1995 Kalanchoe bracteata ssp. glabra Rauh & Hebding (1997) Kalanchoe bracteata ssp. glabra var. aurantiaca Rauh & Hebding (1997) Kalanchoe bracteata ssp. glabra var. glabra Rauh & Hebding (1997) Kalanchoe bracteata ssp. glabra var. pubescens Rauh & Hebding (1997) Section Kalanchoe Distribution : South-eastern Madagascar, rather common in xerophytic shrub on various soils and rocks. Description (according to B. Descoings in IHSP, 2003) : Much branched shrublets to 1,5 m tall clothed with very characteristic hair-scales (stellate hairs with 3 oblong-triangular acute branches), generally very dense, often very appressed and covered with a waxy secretion resulting in a glabrous appearence. Stems woody, densely branched, young obscurely 4-angled. Leaves petiolate, greyish-silvery white to olive-green, petiole fleshy, cylindrical, canaliculate above, 5 – 20 mm, lamina ovate, elliptic to oblanceolate, 2 – 7 x 1 – 4 cm, tip cuneate-acute, base rounded, margins entire. Inflorescences cymes, pedicels ± 1 cm. Flowers erect, sometimes spreading, calyx tube very short to almost absent, sepals deltoid, very acute, 4 – 9 mm, corolla urceolate, red, very fleshy, tube 4-angled, 10 – 16 mm, petals rounded, ± 2 x 1 mm. Cytology : n = 18 Easily confused with K. hildebrandtii which has the same overall appearance, the same ecological requirements, and sometimes occurs in mixed stands. The remarkable indumentum of the leaves is at the same time very delicate and very much appressed so that the plants appear glabrous. Recently, Rauh & Hebding (1997) described ssp. glabra with 3 varieties as listed above in the synonymy; in view of the apparently continuous variation encountered in nature, these taxa are of doubtful taxonomic value General Information: The perennial Kalanchoes are cultivated as houseplants or rock or succulent garden plants. They have low water requirements, a wide variety of colours and are easy to propagate. New plants develop vegetatively as bulbils. These young plants eventually drop off and take root.

Contributed by @lovestogarden

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  Full sun to partial shade

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  Very little water

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  Not Frost hardy

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  Light and free draining