Sansevieria from a leaf cutting.

[Onzuka]

I've posted before about this, but now I have a pic to share. This leaf cutting was rooted by simply standing it in 1cm of water until it grew roots. It was then potted up and it's given me two new plants. It's not a fast process but we cacti and succulent growers tend to be a patient bunch! You can cut a long leaf into several 7 to 10 cm lengths and all will grow roots, providing you stand them the right way up.

As will always happen, a yellow edged cutting has given plain green plants. To learn more about this, do a search using "sansevieria chimera"



Steve

[Ron43]

Yes, a variegated sansevieria will only carry on it's variegation with an rooted division, not with a leaf cutting. To reproduce a chimera with my African Violets I actually split the crown of the plant.

[paulzie32]

Chimera? But isn't a chimera a blending of DNA from two different species or even genus? I'm not sure you can get a "chimera" of the same plant. What happens with a sanseveria leaf cutting, I believe is just reversion back to it's original form.

[Ron43]

Chimera? But isn't a chimera a blending of DNA from two different species or even genus? I'm not sure you can get a "chimera" of the same plant. What happens with a sanseveria leaf cutting, I believe is just reversion back to it's original form.

A chimera will reproduce another chimera if you divide the plant, but not from a cutting. Yes the sansevieria will revert back to green unless you split the actual plant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(plant" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

[CactusFanDan]

Chimera? But isn't a chimera a blending of DNA from two different species or even genus? I'm not sure you can get a "chimera" of the same plant. What happens with a sanseveria leaf cutting, I believe is just reversion back to it's original form.

Some people apply the term to any plant containing cells with two different genotypes, which will mean that variegates are chimerical by that definition.

You can reproduce variegated plants vegetatively though, but the tissue which gives rise to the new plants must contain a mixture of cells with normal pigmentation and also cells with defunct pigmentation. Which tissue becomes a plantlet is random (has to be meristematic), so in order to produce variegated plantlets then you'd probably have to take lots of cuttings. Since the variegation in this form of Sansevieria is around the edges and the meristem is more central, then the plantlets aren't going to contain cells with defunct chloroplasts. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extranuclear_inheritance" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Onzuka]

I must have taken hundreds of cuttings using this method and never have I had anything other than a plain green plantlet! For anyone who doesn't know what happens, a short stem, I guess it's a rhyzome, emerges from the green part of the stem at the base, and the plantlet develops on the end of this. The plantlet does not emerge directly from the actual cutting.

I have heard about very rare occasions, but never actually seen one, where the rhyzome and susequent plantlet have emerged from the yellow part of the cutting and given a totally yellow plantlet which is incapable of independent existance. As I say, I have never even seen a photo of this.

I'll also say that I'm a mechanical engineer and have had zero training in Botany. Most of the technical talk on here goes right over my head, although I do find it interesting. For that reason, I can't comment on how or why these things happen, I just know that they do.

Steve