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Re: Did you get this in the mail?

Title: Re: [GWL] Did you get this in the mail?
on 3/2/03 5:32 AM, Barbara Phillips-Conroy at barbarapc@sprint.ca wrote:

> I suspect in a garden of my size I would need a greenhouse full to deter any
> kittie who really wanted to dig.  While I might suggest using it in a pot, if
> that's where the cat digs, it truly isn't the best looking plant (sort of an
> ugly plectrathus sort of creature).

The fragmentary descriptions of this "Scardy Cat" plant suggest to me that it is a Plectranthus and not a Coleus.  The latest consensus among botanists is that the colored-leaved plants commonly known as "coleus" belong to the genus Solenostemon.  Many of the plants originally described as Coleus are now included in Plectranthus.   

The genus Plectranthus is large one (over 300 currently recognized species, spread over Africa, Arabia, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania).  The genus is still in flux, with a time-lag in the transfer of many species formerly recognized in Coleus to Plectranthus and  many of the hardy East Asian species from Plectranthus to Isodon.

I am working on a book on the cultivated species of Plectranthus, and I find that almost all the spurflowers in commerce are either unnamed or misidentified.  I currently have a collection of some 80 species and cultivars of Plectranthus, and I have managed to identify most of them correctly.  I would like to see a photo of this "Scaredy Cat" coleus to see if it corresponds to one of the plants in my collection.   Correct identification could help determine whether this is eligible for a patent.  If anyone on this list has a plant of this, is there any chance you could send me cuttings or obtain a plant for me?  

John MacGregor
South Pasadena, CA 91030
USDA zone 9   Sunset zones 21/23
jonivy@earthlink.net
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