No. You need to have a tiny bit of healthy stem tissue for new shoots and roots to develop. If leaves have fallen on their own, an abscission layer has formed at the petiole. Basically, the plant body had said to the leaf, "You're dead to me! " :-)

Pothos generate new roots and shoots at the nodes.

what rhizo said, you need some stem. but I have taken a long vine of leaves and cut into all one leaf segments with a little piece of stem (there will be a root corresponding to each leaf) and rooted that way. just throw in water

I have recently cut some tips of both golden and neon pothos. mostly to encourage branching of existing plants, but I don't really throw anything away. think I will put the two together.

new tips

So these won't work?

Nope.

what works better rooting in water or soil? I want to add more to the small plant I just bought. would I be able to plant the cuttings with that plant. Here's the plant. I'm gonna take a decent cutting from my mom's plant.

This post was edited by CactusBoss on Fri, Aug 9, 13 at 1:51

As the others have said, only from the nodes. Even the internodal stems on their own will wither and rot. They're a bit different to Hoya, where the leaves will keep living, produce roots and look great, but never produce a plant/vine.

Does this help you understand what it can do?

Nice new tips, Sradleye!

in my experience its faster and more consistent to root in water, but I have just stuck in soil as well.

I prefer water rooting these type of plants but either will do. Purp's method of rooting a whole section of vine works well too.

Roots that develop in water will be physiologically different than those in a solid medium. The water roots must be able to access dissolved oxygen from the water. Soil roots have evolved to access water from a solid medium.

If you root something in water, it will have to reinvent that root system all over again once it's planted.

It's really better for a plant to be able to root in one step and not two. Soil rooting is very easy once you've learned a very few little tricks.

Cactus, do you know what a leaf petiole is? It occurred to me that you might be confusing the petiole (which is part of the leaf) with a stem.

rhizo_1, Now i know. And would I be able to stick the NEW proper cutting into the same container as the smaller pothos pictured above?

Yes you can start the new cuttings in the original pot.

Dipped it into some rooting hormone and put it back in the soil.

I have rooted many a pothos plant in water. I now have so many that I have started to give my new plants away as gifts to friends. When I trim the leaves off to make new rooting stems, I take those leaves and place them in a small glass. Not all the leaves root, I really loose most of the leaves, but some DO root! They take a bit longer but they will root. I plant them along with my stem cuttings in new plant pots. So long as they stay watered they are just as vibrant as my stem cuttings. However, I have not seen them grow into a stem and produce more leaves. Nevertheless, I love them, because they add fullness to my plant, keeping it from looking bare at the top when the stems start to droop down with growth. I would not trust rooting leaves that have been dropped by the plant. I only root fresh ones I have cut while rooting the stems. Hope this helps.

So Janet, are you saying that you take a pothos leaf (epipremnum aureum) that you cut off the vine (did not fall on its own) and it has none of the stem and no node, and you put that in water and it will grow roots? I did not think that was possible but I fairly new to house plants. Could you show a photo of a pothos leaf with no node that has developed roots? Thanks!

I also rooted leftover healthy single leaves of pothos years ago when I did not have that many yet. They took LONG TIME to root in water. I planted them in soil about a year later. I've been given out more than ten pots of regular cuttings to friends since then, but the one grown from single leaves is a keeper, I've attached to it.

I also had a Pothos leaf that I accidentally broke off of the plant about 4 mo. ago & I put it in water, tons of roots but no new leaves, how long might it take to grow another leaf..

Can you show a photo of this? I have never heard of this nor seen this with pothos.

Yes, I'll need to get my daughter to come over this weekend and do it as my skills with a camera are sorely lacking...

That is a philodendron not a pothos. And I do see nodes where the roots are coming from. Philos can have such a small stem it can look like it is a leaf only. The second photo is a pothos though.

Thank you, do you think the philodendron is ever going to grow into a plant or just forever and ever roots?

It very well could. But with only one leaf creating energy for the plant it will take awhile. I would certainly give it a chance. But then I can't let anything die. every thing that falls or gets trimmed off I put in a glass of water!

Thank you, I have a problem with letting things die also. This leaf is not going anywhere and thankfully the rest of my plant children are healthy and happy,Thanks again, Gail

I have 2 leafs in water that are growing roots. I cut them without any steam and they are not growing new leafs, but they are healthy and they look very pretty alone.

So this will work?? I can't throw this pretty huge leaves...

I pulled some leaves off (didn't need leaves on part of the stem) and got 7 out or 9 to root in water. Took from spring to fall to get enough roots to move into a mud medium but I'm unsure if it will ever produce a full plant. I know that some plants leaves grow roots but will not regrow anything more and often still die after a year or so.

I have a root growing from a leaf.

Cuttings (leaf)

Many plants can be propagated from leaf cuttings. The pivotal point is whether or not the propagule is capable of forming adventitious buds, which are buds that form on plant parts other than leaf axils. A leaf axil is the crotch formed by the leaf stem (petiole) and the branch/ trunk/ stem it is attached to. Some plants have groups of cells that descend directly from embryonic cells engaged in meristematic activity. These cell groups can differentiate into buds/shoots from foliar embryos that formed as the leaf was forming. More commonly though, wound-induced secondary meristems can form when existing tissues already acting as part of an organ dedifferentiate into NEW meristematic regions (de novo regeneration), then redifferentiate into new organs (buds).

If you want to be fairly certain that you'll be successful in your cloning attempts, make sure you include a latent or actively growing axillary bud, which would be located just distal to (above) where the leaf is attached to the stem. The downside to propagating from stem cuttings with a singular leaf in water is that often the bud is destroyed by rot, and/or, the type of root tissue that forms in water is physiologically very different from root tissue that forms in a solid, well-aerated medium. This difference is made manifest in the water-formed roots being very poor at taking up water from a solid medium, along with the fact that water roots are very delicate, almost brittle. As such, they handle the transition from water to soil poorly.

Many leaf cuttings will readily produce roots to form 'blind cuttings', which means they are incapable of forming the adventitious buds which are a prerequisite to shoot formation on any cutting that does not include a node and an axillary bud. It is not essential that a leaf be attached to the propagule, as axillary buds are located distal to (above) the leaf and the scar left behind where a leaf was once attached. I don't know if your plant is one such, but if it lives on and on w/o forming a stem, you'll at least know the reason.

To reiterate, it's best to bring an existing node with an axillary bud along for the ride or be ready for a disappointment. Blind cuttings can live for years, but eventually they collapse for no conspicuous reason.

Al