Hi Mike, Dont buy the oxypetalum. I am sending you a few pieces of this one. It is true that they grow like crazy. I left this one at my parents house when I moved out because it does take a tremendous amount of space. I got a call from my mom and she told me that she was waiting for the day that that was going to strangle her..LOL. Once you have an established cutting, you can expect some new growths to be a couple feet long. No joke, mine had some growths that were 4 ft long in one summer!! The blooms are great! Just make sure your going to be home to enjoy them! Mine only lasted one night and that was it. As soon as the sun went down, the bud would begin to open. By the time the sun came up, it was closing. Logees describes it as having flowers the size of dinner plates. I had some that were even larger than that!!! Mine is pitifull now compared to when it was in its glory. I wished I would have found a way to care for it here. At one point, that plant was around 10ft long but I have had it for over 10 years. You can control the growth with pruning. Just make sure you do it at the right time or you will end up with no blooms. I will have to read up on my notes on this before I can tell you when to prune it. I can send you 3-4 nice cuttings next week with the others if you want okay? I also have a nice big pink epi. I don't know the name of the variety but it is really pretty. Trust me, neither of them will take a lifetime to get blooms from. My oxy bloomed in 1.5-2 years after I got it. I started a couple for friends and the one I gave to my landlords mom bloomed the same year I rooted it! The pink variety I bought locally and they had rooted cuttings with buds on them. I will say that it may take a couple years for those blooms to reach there potential. Andrew

The fire or coals would be built in the removable pan, not the base if it were a brazier, Linda. Yes, flower pots do come in copper and brass even if it is toxic to plants. Ask me how I know, I've run a floral business for quarter of a century. And if it were a cachepot there is no reason for drainage. It's just a decorative place to stick the real pot. Yes, it does look like one of those made in India for export items. They're often meant to be more decorative than functional. We've had this baptismal font discussion on the antique forum before. Most private estates don't have spare fonts tucked away for a rainy day ;-) Most fonts have some sort of religious symbolism on them as well. This is about as secular as it comes. Staci.............we're all just guessing at this point because it's pretty a pretty bizarre (uhm novel) piece. I have seen a couple similar ones online identified as baptismal fonts, but one dealer was honest enough to admit it was for want of a better description and asked if anyone could really identify what it was, to please let them know. It's some sort of artistic piece and may be little more than a stand meant to be used to display something else on....that's why I asked for dimensions.

I would say the same as Breasley. An Asian market or specialty shop of sorts. If you can't find it I'll be happy to send you some. Please let me know. I live in a very diverse area and have Asian markets and Indian markets everywhere. And also, most of our supermarkets carry a wide range of ethnic foods and I tend to forget that not every town in America carries all of these products that I take for granted.

caligirl5, thank you. The rug is from eSaleRugs. I don't know if it's still available. The nice thing about this company is that you can return a rug you don't like without having to pay a shipping fee.