Titanotrichum oldhamii is an interesting, beautiful and unusual plant, native primarily to Taiwan, Japan and adjacent areas of mainland China. It is the only Gesneriad not native to the Americas which has rhizomatous root structures. Long thought to be sterile, it turns out that it is essentially self-sterile — almost all of the material in cultivation has been a single clone, hence no seed could be produced.

However, additional clones have come into cultivation through a research project conducted in part at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. The plant illustrated here is distinct from the “standard” cultivar. See close-up photos of this plant and of the standard form for comparison purposes.