A Begonia mystery
Begonia ‘Credneri’ (I think…) Photograph: Jane Perrone.
What’s the best way to get hold of a plant? For me, it’s always going to be via a plant swap.
Sometimes new plants come to me in really unexpected ways. A fellow volunteer at the community herb garden asked for advice on plants for dry shade, and I offered her a piece of my Aspidistra 'Asahi' - a beautiful variegated aspidistra with cream tips to the leaves. In return, she gave me a leaf from an heirloom Begonia that had been in her family for years, a stalwart plant that had been cut many times to make new plants.
She didn’t know the species or cultivar; I was expecting it to be a beefsteak Begonia maybe, or a spotty Lucerna. When it arrived, I quickly realised after running through my mental Begonia checklist (we all have one of those, right?) that I had no idea what it was:; just that it was a beauty. The large leaves were dark olive green on the top, maroon red below, and softly hairy all over, including the stems.
The back of the leaf showing off its pubescent surface. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Asking for suggestions on Instagram, two names came up - Begonia thurstonii and Begonia ‘Oldemore’. The former, though, does not have hairy leaves, so it looked like ‘Oldemore’ was the ID. Except. Except. Begonia nomenclature is, like so many other houseplants, a spaghetti soup. A tangle. A right old mess. Professional growers have always stuck commercial names on plants to make them sell better: the origin of some names, like Begonia maculata ‘Wightii’, seem completely lost to history (trust me, I tried to find out for my chapter on this species in my book Legends of the Leaf. No dice.
The mother plant (click to enlarge). Photograph: Kate Kinns.
With some more research, though, I found an answer of sorts. It appears that ‘Oldemor’ (or ‘Oldemore’ as it is also written) is one of these commercial names, for a hybrid cultivar whose official name is Begonia ‘Credneri’ - it’s parents are (female) B. scharffiana var. scharffiana and (male) Begonia incarnata (formerly known as B. metallica). Oldemore means great grandmother in Danish, so perhaps an ancient relative of a grower provided both this name and the mother plant for a nursery. (If you’re interested in finding out more about Begonia pollination and breeding, check this out.)
“Credneri’ is an heirloom Begonia dating back to 1890 and created by Friedrich Adolph Haage and Franz Schmidt in Germany. This makes sense: my friend wasn’t sure how long it had been in her family, but it certainly had not been bought recently. It has recently come back into mass production and is being marketed as ‘Oldemor’ by the Eden Collection in the Netherlands.
By all accounts this is a shrubby Begonia that can get quite large: as a cane begonia, it needs to be propagated from stem cuttings.