Do you want to try magic on your African violets? You can transform your plants into “giants” through the use of colchicine.
Properly treated and grown African violet leaves develop into plants that have larger leaves and flowers than those of the original plant.
Of course, colchicine can also be used on other plants. My efforts, however, have been chiefly concerned with producing “supreme” African Violets.
Colchicine for plant experiments has been available for some time in a kit that includes a sufficient quantity of the drug and the equipment necessary for its application.
Since it is an old remedy for rheumatism, it is sometimes possible to obtain it from a druggist.
A satisfactory solution is 0.5% percent pure colchicine and 99.5% percent lanolin. Because colchicine is poisonous, it should be handled with extreme care, regardless of how it was obtained.
Applying Colchicine To African Violets
Colchicine can be applied to African violets in either liquid or salve form. The usual treatment on other plants calls for applying colchicine to the growing tip.
In the case of African violet leaf-cuttings, the growing tip will appear immediately at the cut edge of the leaf stem.
A leaf-cutting will usually produce several small plants which may grow from any part of the cut edge.
Leaf Preparation
When creating “supreme” African violets, the leaf cuttings are prepared and inserted in the rooting medium in the usual way. Then, cut with a sharp knife straight across the leaf stem and insert about 1/2-inch deep in damp sand or another suitable rooting medium.
After a few days, it may be five or ten the cut end of the leaf stem will become enlarged, flaring out at the edges.
No roots or young plants will have made their appearance as yet. If you use the salve form of colchicine, this would be the time to treat your cutting.
Hold the leaf carefully and draw the cut end of the leaf stem gently through the colchicine salve, repeating the process until the entire flared edge of the cut is covered with a thin layer.
The African violet cutting should then be planted, taking care not to brush the salve from the cut.
Make sure that the flared edge is covered all around with salve as plants coming from a bare spot will be normal not “supreme.”
Liquid Application
When the liquid form of colchicine is used, the African violet leaf is left in the rooting medium until the roots have formed and the little plants are about to develop.
Plant in soil and apply eight or ten drops of solution directly above the edge. Flare by use of a medicine dropper before the full amount of potting soil is placed around the leaf stem.
A glass jar inverted over treated leaves prevents the solution from being leached. The jar must be shaded from bright sunlight.
The first leaves of successfully treated plants will take a little longer than usual to appear, and they will be distorted. This distortion will appear only in the first few leaves; subsequent leaves will develop normally and be larger and thicker.
This plant will grow into a “supreme,” and all plants propagated from its leaves will also be of supreme size and form. There may be some variations among them, but the plants will never revert to the original type.
How Colchicine Works
Colchicine, an extract from the fall-blooming Colchicum bulb, has a paralyzing effect on the chromosomes in the plant cells. These rod-like parts of the cell determine the growth characteristics of the plant.
Ordinarily, in the growth process, plant cells divide in half, making two cells. The chromosomes inside also divide, half staying with the old cell and half going on to the new cell. The result is two identical cells.
When colchicine has applied, the cell and chromosomes divide normally. but the second set of chromosomes doesn’t return to the new cell. Instead, it stays in the old cell with the result that we now have a cell with twice the normal number of chromosomes.
All new cells growing from this one will also have twice the normal number of chromosomes.
Due to this doubling of the chromosome number, we get “supreme” African violets with large, thick leaves and giant flowers with greater depth of color.
44659 by Oliver H. Pease