Species library › Columnea › Columnea minor
Other Partly documented

Columnea minor

An epiphytic gesneriad of the very wet Chocó forests of north-western Ecuador and south-western Colombia, formerly placed in Trichantha. Like its relatives it has trailing or arching stems with paired leaves and tubular, hairy flowers backed by coloured calyces. It needs warm, constantly humid, shaded conditions and a free-draining, never-dry mount or basket.

Columnea minor
Photo: yakovlev.alexey from Moscow, Russia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day Warm-growingTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Humid airBand in Plantistry
Light Dappled lightDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodGrows on trees (epiphyte)

Where it grows wild

An epiphyte on trunks and branches in wet premontane and lowland rainforest on the Pacific slope of the Andes. Recent wild records cluster around Mashpi and Pacto (Pichincha), El Chical (Carchi), Ñambí, Mallama and Barbacoas (Nariño), Santo Domingo, San Lorenzo (Esmeraldas), Cumandá and Moromoro.

The GBIF records carry no elevations, but their localities span roughly 100 m (San Lorenzo) to about 1,500 m (Mashpi, Ñambí, El Chical), mostly in the 600–1,400 m foothill belt.

EcuadorColombia

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

Grow Columnea minor? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.

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 2.0 licence, unmodified.