The birthplace of this unusual plant is the tropics of Australia and Southeast Asia. Akalifa is a lush green shrub with prolonged unusual flowering. It can be grown as an ampel culture, if you pinch the tips of shoots - they branch. Care for the tropic is simple, and it develops very quickly.
Akalifa - description
Culture is also called the "fox tail", the distinctive feature of it are flowers. There are two main groups of its varieties. The name refers to the most common bristly-haired akalifa. What does a fox-tail look like: the bush is covered with fluffy raspberry inflorescences hanging down. For their sake, this kind of plant is grown. Leaves of most varieties of Akalifa are like nettles - ovoid, pointed, bright green. The second group of foxtail is cultivated for the sake of greenish-bronze with sharp spots of sharpened 20 cm long plates. They have small flowers.
Akalifa - home care
The content of all bush species is the same. Quality care at home for akalifa should be as follows:
- Temperature regime - the plant does not tolerate drafts. If you take it out on a balcony, you need to protect it from blowing. Akalifa is thermophilic, acceptable for her regime in the summer is 20-25 degrees. In winter, normal air is considered to be not lower than 18 centigrade;
- Lighting should be restrained bright, in summer the flower should be covered from direct sunlight. When there is a lack of light, the plant stretches, the leaves fade, its appearance deteriorates;
- Watering: Akalifa is a moisture-loving plant. From the beginning of spring and until autumn, the foxtail moistens generously - the land must constantly be wet, not wet. In winter, watering is reduced, but the soil should not dry out in the pot;
- Dry air does not like this plant very much. In the hot period, the flower needs to be sprayed. To keep the air around moist, the container with acalifo is placed on a pallet with loose pebbles or expanded clay, which are periodically moistened;
- For cultivation of a foxtail it is recommended weakly acid and loose ground, permeable for air and water. You can take the same parts of turf, leafy soil, peat and sand;
- From spring to autumn, during a period of rapid growth, mineral fertilizers are added to the pot with the plant in a week. The feeding is stopped in winter;
- The transplant is made in the spring or summer, allows you to renew the acalife, give it an incentive to grow. Young foxtail transplant annually until the age of five, adult specimens - less often. Based on experience, rapidly growing culture for 3-4 years loses its attractiveness - it is shortened or renewed by rooting cuttings;
- Adult foxtail is greatly expanded. It must be cut to a kind of hemp height of 20-30 cm, cover with a plastic wrap. Periodically the plant needs to be sprayed and ventilated. Akalifa will soon release new young shoots and will be updated. Good results are sprayed with its aqueous solution of zircon - two drops of the drug per liter of water;
Sometimes there are difficulties in care:
- The leaves of the Akalifa turn yellow and fall, if the bush is in low humidity, it should be sprayed;
- From lack of light, shoots stretch upward and fade. It is necessary to rearrange the pot in a brighter place;
- Leaves wither, if the room has a low temperature, you need to increase it;
- On the green, there were spots, which can be evidence of a fungus attack. The crown should be treated with a fungicide;
- Slow growth and pale foliage of the acaliphy signal a lack of nitrogen in the earth. It is necessary to feed the roots with urea at a concentration of one gram per liter of water;
Akalifa - reproduction by cuttings
Increase the population of the flower can be with the help of apical shoots. Akalife for reproduction requires cuttings - semisolid. Flowering varieties are bred in March, ornamental-deciduous - all year round. The apical ten-centimeter shoots are rooted in a substrate of peat with sand in equal parts. The temperature for their germination should be not less than 20 degrees.
The mini-greenhouse with heating from below gives excellent results. In it, the temperature remains at a level of 22-25 degrees, which greatly accelerates the rooting process. Cuttings are periodically aerated and sprayed. After the acalifus is rooted, the sprouts are planted in the ground, consisting of peat, turf, leaf land and sand. After the development of the plant (after 1.5-2 months), the tips of the shoots are pricked to make it bush.
Why does not the akalifa blossom?
The foxtail can delight beautiful fluffy coronals all year round. Inflorescences are crimson or white, up to 50 cm long. If the decorative room acalife does not bloom, you need to pay attention to the conditions of detention. This can happen for several reasons:
- scanty soil ( fertilizing is needed);
- very dry air (spraying is required, the pot is installed on a pallet with wet pebbles);
- low temperature (to form in the room the optimal thermal regime for the corresponding time of year).
Akalifa - Species
There are different varieties of foxtail. Their leaves with notches have a bronze, emerald, spotted color. Some varieties have a white or pink border, others - striped veins. They differ in size and shape. There are species represented by very narrow leaves. Inflorescences of the akalifa also differ - there are little-decorative small buds and long fluffy bright "earrings". The color range of the flower varies, the most popular - burgundy-brown, bright red, orange, pink, green and white. Each plant is a foxtail in its own way beautiful.
Bristly Acacia
It grows in the form of an elegant shrub, perennial. This houseplant with bright green matte ovoid foliage with serrate edges, pronounced veins, similar to nettle. The branches are stretched for 3 m in height. Akalifa bristly blooms beautiful, brightly colored drooping spiked fluffy "earrings", reaching a length of 50 cm, similar to the tail of a fox. Color - crimson, red. In the Alba variety, the inflorescence is white. With good care bright "tails" appear all the year round. The plant does not tolerate freezing and low temperature.
Akalifa Wilks
Rapidly growing branchy shrub up to 3 m in height with reddish straight, sparse shoots. It can be called a rainbow plant. Attracts attention with its jagged pointed leaves with bright red and gold patterns. In different light, they have different shades. Under normal conditions, Wilks' acalife has a copper-red hue, the sun turns orange, various shades of green appear in the shade. The saturation effect of the crown is directly proportional to the amount of sunlight in the place where the flower lives.
They cultivate Wilkes' acalife as a houseplant due to such original carved reddish foliage. There are varieties of culture with spotted plates. They are found copper-red, green with a white border or orange-bronze. In height, the flower grows to two meters. To the plant had a neat shape, it should be regularly plucked. His flowers are inconspicuous, small to 10 cm, collected in axillary spiked buds.
Akalifa ciliate
It has African roots, is used by residents of local tribes as a vegetable crop. Sometimes she is fed animals. On the territories of the West and East, the African continent is also used as a medicinal plant. It is believed that it helps to rejuvenate the body, heals scabies and can cope with depriving. Akalifa foxtail (cultivar of ciliate) is similar to other species - it has jagged leaves of mint color, each flower consists of fluffy stamens in the form of a long spike of pink and red.
Akalifa vigince
This variety is on the verge of extinction, it comes from a small part of the Galapagos Islands. The main reasons for the decline in the population of the variety are construction work in the places where it grows and loss of habitat. This is a rare type of acaliph, house plants of this kind are practically not found. Scientists believe that it is threatened with extinction and the variety must be rescued immediately. The leaves are broad, with a narrowed end, elongated. Inflorescences are long, bright red, hanging down.
Akalifa ampelnaya
Other names are Haitian, oaky-leaved. The plant is endowed with a sprawling creeping stalk with drooping shoots. The leaves of the akalifa have small (4 cm.) Mint color, sometimes with a lighter border. Their contours are cored, with a serrated edge, arranged alternately on the branch. Spicate inflorescences are pubescent, have a bright purple color, also hang to the ground. Their length is 4-10 cm. Such an acalife is grown as a room, ampel (winding). Planted in suspended flowerpots.
Akalifa Indian
A shrub with a life cycle of one year, reaches a height of 50 cm. A small strong stem has a simple shape, a slight branching, in the upper section is fluffy. The leaf plates of the acalipha are oval in shape; along the rim, a serration is started; five veins can be seen at the base. The length reaches 2-6 cm with a width of 1-1.5 cm. The Indian shrub flower has coronoid spikes (one or two) located in the base of the leaves, they are collected in axillary and staminate buds. The length of the mini-bouquet is 1-7 cm. The vegetation process runs from July to September.
Akalifa Mosaic
This is a variety of Wilkes (Wilkes). Akalifa mosaic is decorated with broadened oval or obovate green leaves (about 13 cm long) with different spots. The bizarre color connects red, orange and green. Variegated varieties of foxtail look very decorative. The flower of acalifus with spotted foliage bright buds does not please. His inflorescence is inconspicuous. All the beauty of these plants lies in the coloring of large leaves.