Miniature Fukurin Clivia

Below is a photo of my smallest Fukurin. It is grown from seed harvested from a Zhu Jifu plant. Over the past 10 years that I have been growing Zhu Jifu broad leaves I noticed that a small % of the seedlings are dwarfs and/or miniatures. This is due to the dwarf gene found in many of Mr Zhu's plants when he developed miniatures from his short leaf variegated plants.  It is not as small as my mini clivia miniature. The flower next to it is larger than an average size clivia. The other photo is of a super miniata seedling. It's second leaf is almost 5cm wide. From the looks of it, it looks like it will also develop in a type of miniature. Its background is Heng Lan.

  

Clivia mini miniature - smallest of all clivia

Below are photos of my smallest clivia. It is so small that I only discovered it after 3 years in one of my shade houses. As you can see from the photos below, it is less than 4cm from leaf tip to leaf tip. It already has a type of base and is very slow growing. The leaves are thick and deformed. It will probably never flower, but might make offsets one day. That is if a leaf eating insect like a worm or locust does not discover it, because it can make a meal of it and finishes it off within a few hours. I photographed it with a normal size clivia flower so that you can form an idea how small it really is. I also compare it with the width of a clivia chart if you have one.
 

10 September - the start of the 2010 miniata flowering season

September is the month clivia miniata and nobilis starts to flower in the Garden Route- a month before many indigenous bulbs in this region starts to flower. It is a time when small frogs can relax inside the clivia flowers and snails and other insects get something different to eat. This year I did not expect many flowers after a very long drought, but was surprised with more than a thousand flowers in one shadehouse alone during the 2nd week of September. I usually start to take photos just before sunrise as I enjoy the colours of the flowers when the morning rays fall on them at a sharp angle and the light is not so strong.  

Clivia miniatures - small, beautiful, rare and expensive

Above is a full grown plant with ideal dimensions grown under normal conditions the past 4 years in George. The photo was taken earlier this year. The leaf width is 9cm and the leaf length is also 9cm, giving it the ideal ratio of 1:1. As you can see from the photo above, the leaves are circular because of these ideal dimensions. It can be called a true round leaf. It grow as fast as any normal clivia, pushing out new leaves at a regular rate.

In 2006 when I visited Mr Zhu Jifu in Shenyang he has given me four miniature seedlings. Two of them variegated and the other two green leaves. At that time it was a new creation of Mr Zhu and he told us the price of a full grown broad leaf miniature is approximately 100000 RMB. These plants seldom flower, and if they flower it might be out of season. Of these four plants none has flowered up to date. Unfortunately this rare and beautiful plant did not escape the locust attacks earlier this year, despite of me entering the shade house a couple of times a day to get rid of them. This beautiful plant is now reduced to something worthless, but it will recover soon as only the leaves were damaged.

Above is another miniature that was given to me in 2006 by Mr. Zhu. This plant is even smaller than the one in the first photo with leaves only 3.5cm in length. The leaves are 5 cm wide as can be seen in the photos below.

Above photo was taken in 2006 when the plants were given to me as seedlings. They were at least one year old at that stage.  

   

Above - growing up as babies on my farm - their first leaves in South Africa

Above and below - growing quickly to become adults