Streptocarpus porphyrostachys is a relatively small-growing unifoliate species, which can be accommodated in a 4″ pot or smaller. The single thick leathery leaf (300 x 180 mm) is typically grayish green, in some plants more gray than in others, the underside is deep beetroot red. It produces a very nice set of beautiful dark or lighter blue/purple flowers in cultivation, in nature the number of flowers is often less.
Plants are normally monocarpic, and usually die after fruiting, but in cultivation some produce a subsequent new leaf for the next season. Hybrids occur in nature which can be rosulate, so this species possesses considerable potential for the hybridizer.
Streptocarpus porphyrostachys is endemic to a small area on the South African east coast called Pondoland, which has a rich flora which includes a number of other Streptocarpus species. Streptocarpus porphyrostachys grows in rock cracks or moss covered rocks in forest often right at the edge of grassland where a rock embankment falls away towards a river or a forest. The common flower of the species is tube-shaped, corolla 30 – 43 mm long, with up to 24 flowers in nature, many more in cultivation. Extensive fieldwork in Pondoland has revealed a form with an identical leaf but with a keyhole shaped flower. Such plants are fewer flowered, and plants with intermediate flowers have also been discovered.
- Plants growing under a rock shelf
- A plant growing from a cleft on a vertical rock face
- A beautifully flowering cultivated show plant, exhibited at the 2020 virtual show of the Gesneriad Society
- Another cultivated plant, nicely displayed
- The flowers on this plant in closeup
- A clump of non-flowering plants growing in moss on the surface of a damp rock
- A collage showing front and side views of flowers, illustrating differences in form; note the open tube type of flower on the right, which is most common, compared with the keyhole type flowers on the left.
