Begonia foliosa
A shrubby, small-leaved begonia from the Andean cloud forests of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, with arching stems densely clothed in tiny glossy leaves and small white flowers; the red-flowered var. miniata is the form usually grown. It likes cool, humid, bright-shaded conditions and resents heat. It has naturalised in the wet mountains of Hawaii, which shows how easily it grows in mild, moist conditions.
Where it grows wild
Grows in montane cloud forest and along its disturbed edges, gullies and banks, often in dense colonies and sometimes scrambling or climbing through other vegetation. Herbarium labels mention cloud forest near Colonia Tovar in Venezuela and a disturbed cloud forest at Chicaque in Colombia.
GBIF herbarium records from its native range lie between about 1,000 m and 2,200 m. Not measured by our pipeline.
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The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.