Hi, I have a bunch of seeds that I would like to trade for a decent size goldfish/Candycorn plant or a decent size lipstick plant. Please let me know if you are interested. Gardengal11

I have a love for goldfish plants myself, but one thing you have to be really, really aware of: spider mites like these plants the way bunnies like carrots. Check for fine webbing and pin-size spiders under the leaves and at the base of the plant---they can be difficult to spot. If you do find mites you're likely going to lose the whole plant. My best advise is to take cuttings (if you have any branches left that are not turning brown), immerse them in a water and bleach solution (50:50) and soak for about 4 hours. That may sound like a harsh way to treat a plant, but in my many years of growning goldfish it's the only way to salvage things once the mites come. After the soaking you can root the cuttings in water or soil (I like water) and grow a new plant. It is *very* important you isolate this plant from your other plants because spider mites spread like wildfire.

Yep, it looks like two different plants allright! I'm not good with Nematanthus names--you might do better on the Gesneriad forum, tho' it's slower than this one. Or you could look at pictures on sites like Rob's Violets and Kartuz Greenhouses--others too.

John Boggan and I have a disagreement about this. He first learned goldfish for columneas and I have always "known" it was the term for nematanthus. John's no slouch and knows his plants so I guess this term has been used for both for a long time. But somewhere in my dim memory I read that in the 5o's or 60's an English botanist proposed a common name for the plants we now know as nematanthus. His suggestion was "Globe Fish Plant". I have no idea what a globe fish is but my theory is that "globe fish" was corrupted into "goldfish". Anyway, I use it for nematanthus, but prefer to use the latin name. My big flowered varieties hang on long thread-like pedicels with a 2" flower having a long narrow mouth that faces down. To me they look like little yellow and orange whales,swimming through the air collecting plankton. I have a pink x codonatanthus that reminds me of a fancy guppy. So there is definitely a theme going on with these plants. By the way, an old name for Nematanthus wettsteinii is "Candy Corn Plant" for the orange and yellow flower. Nematanthus means "thread flower" referring to the long pedicels on certain species. Originally the species that had flowers on very short pedicels were in the genus hypocyrta, but that genus was combined into nematanthus, in part because fertile hybrids were made between the two. The hypocyrtas include wettsteinii and gregarius, while the long pediceled types are ones like brasiliensis (5" long pedicel) and fritchii which I believe has the longest pedicel at about 6-7". Anyway, nematanthus is one of my favorite genera. Jon