if you repost in begonia forum you can get it ID'ed further. you can prune it quite aggressively like by half height, and certainly by third if you're hesitant.

plus you can root cuttings easily too - even just in water.

it grows and drops so many flowers that the oak trees consider it an
over-achiever and have ostracized it due to their jealousy of the mess
it is capable of making.

====>>> lol .... ken

Huh. I cant believe I have never laid eyes on a plant I have heard so much about. Here I thought it was something exotic and strange, and its so mundane you had it pegged in minutes. Next time ill have to dig a bit deeper to give you something that will take some puzzling over. My only question is why I have never seen a plant even close to this in Florida.

Your plant is still strange and exotic. And beautiful. Distantly related to cucurbits, now thats very strange. Some of us here specialize in strange and exotic, so BRING IT ON !!!!!

In Florida you can grow just about every exotic tropical imaginable. So maybe some of the devout whoof de do gardeners down there might consider angel wing begonias mundane. But that is far from the case up here. People are always begging cuttings.

Florida is BIG, whereabouts in Fl are you?

i've seen various begonias in landscaping in SE FL - regular wax begonias grow to 3' there :)))) into bushes!

but i've also seen huge angle-wing cane begonias (like 6-8') too. in ground. obviously as perennials ;).

Im in the Tampa Bay area. I dont think I have ever seen them anywhere in Florida, or if I have they didnt catch my eye at the time.

Jay, i believe I had everyone's heads spinning trying to ID this Caliphruria Subedentata. That one had everyone stumped for a while, and I had never seen that one outside of Colombia where I cut it from a friend's plant.

Hey, good one Matt. When I see photos like that,my head spins, and then I wait and let someone else have a shot. Houseplants and tropicals are not my forte, but I'm amazed at the knowledge some of the members have.

great match with the pot :).

LOL, also brought the planter back from Colombia, two of them to be exact, back when you could still check LARGE extra baggage on the airlines for little cost. The planters are each complete bare clay frogs, about 3 feet long by 1.5 feet high. I wisely chose to use a pot that neatly fits in the opening. Can you imagine trying to repot something like that? Even the feet are hollow.

wow, 3' ? so the plant is Very large then? neat! looks very healthy too!

Yes the plants are big enough to cover their entire frog enclosures, from 12 inch pots wedged in the openings in the top of the planters. Looks like a couple of frogs with green poofy dreads. Or maybe enormous Chia Pets? LOL

Could possibly be Begonia 'Black Jack'. But there are probably a hundred of the cane begonias.

i just googled Caliphruria and realized it's in Amaryllis family and blooms beautifully.

is it blooming for you?

Yes, mine bloomed like mad this year. I have had it for maybe 17 years now, and both plants bloomed this year for the first time. This year is when I have started to really study about soil, light and nutrients. I actually just repotted one of the two planters last week in Al's 5:1:1 mix and waiting to see how it does against the "control group" in the other planter.

This was early in the spring, when I had just trimmed them back. The next month, each planter had 10 or so flower stalks.

Matt, did you know that your Caliphuria is very threatened with extinction in the wild ? All 4 Caliphurias in South America are treatened. Actually 1 species is already declared extinct. Very beautiful flowers.

I know it is threatened. It is a very popular houseplant in Colombia, so by being there and seeing it so much you'd never guess it to be in a vulnerable state. I got mine by digging out a single bulb with a tiny leaf on it from a friend's plant, wrapping it in wet newspaper and (gasp) sneaking it back to Florida carefully tucked inside a shoe in my checked luggage. I hope the FBI doesnt catch up to me after all these years. LOL

From there it had pups galore and eventually I whacked the plant in half so I could have both planters filled.

I was thinking that probably some greedy poor natives are digging up those beautiful plants and selling them on ebay. Just like the same kind of people that are collecting every last native ginseng plant in the south over here. Just like feathers in British hats nearly wiped out the most gorgeous birds in the world. It's such a shame that so many blind people have no reverence for nature at all. I'm sure Sudan would agree with me. He was the last living African male Northern White Rhino in the world. And he died in May. All attempts to bring back the species have failed. They are probably gone forever. While rich Chinese gloat to their friends about their rare horn potion that they use for an erection. ( myth) They will reap what they sow.https://youtu.be/ALPwujKU4bs

Nothing quite as sinister as rhino horn boner potion here. Technically I did illegally import it, but it wasnt harvested illegally. It is actually very easy to grow, propigate, and very tolerant of lackluster care. These plants spent a year in my uncle's garden under a tree with no watering, feeding or any attention at all while I was out of the country. They looked fantastic when i got back although the stalks were a bit elongated due to the shade. They grow from bulbs. I suspect they grow them commercially in Colombia like about 80% of the flowers we buy. Thus, if they are so easy to grow and propagate, they must be threatened due to habitat loss, not criminal harvesting.