Saucer Plant?

[dial999]

I bought the houseplant pictured as a tot at a W.I. stand, and the lady only knew it was called "friendship plant". Not very helpful , but you can see a tendency to produce plantlets which we meanwhile potted up and gave to various friends, some of whom belong to horticultaral groups. Suffice it to say no one has yet been able to identify this plant. So we have proud owners from Wales to Suffolk and across the Souh coast, but we all just call it the mystery plant now, and it's annoying. :confused:

Just in case it's not clear, the central stem loses the lower leaves as it's habit. What you see here is surrounded by a lot of baby plants, giving it the "rounded" look. As far as we know, it does not flower but produces a bract of some sort. Hope someone can recognise it?

[dial999]

I see this has had plenty of views but no suggestions, so I contacted the kind people at Kew who have now identified the plant as Pilea peperomioides.

For any others out there who have one or are just interested, here is a link for plant information. There is also a link to "A Chinese puzzle solved" on this page which tells a fascinating story:

http://www.wildchicken.com/nature/garden/nature_200_040.htm

[Miranda]

Hey, that's me! (well, my page). Glad you found that page useful, dial :) The article is fascinating and I'm really glad I kept a copy for all those years. For some reason I didn't see your post, or I'd have answered it right away. Your plant looks very good, by the way.

The plant in the photo, where it's in the bathroom, is now about twice the size and in need of dividing again.

[dial999]

140 views and no reply! Where were you, Miranda? ;)

I'm still calculating the odds of me putting up a link and you spotting it as yours, in two hours exactly according to the post times. :confused:

Thanks for hanging on to the article - that's what made me pick it out.

[Miranda]

Where were you, Miranda? ;)
I'm still calculating the odds of me putting up a link and you spotting it as yours, in two hours exactly according to the post times. :confused:
Thanks for hanging on to the article - that's what made me pick it out.

Don't know why I didn't see your post before, dial. I should have done!

As for me finding your post two hours after you after you wrote it - dunno, one of those things, I guess. Funny, though ;-)

I was really pleased when the author said we could use the article, because there's so little information about that plant. That page gets a lot of views :-)