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Gymnosiphon usambaricus

Gymnosiphon usambaricus is a small, leafless, fully mycoheterotrophic perennial in the Burmanniaceae that gets its nutrients from fungi in forest leaf litter rather than from photosynthesis. It is a wild, endangered species of wet evergreen forest and is not grown as a garden or houseplant.

Family
Burmanniaceae (Burmanni family)
Grows as
Perennial
Soil
Forest leaf litter and humus, which it cannot be grown in conventionally
How easy
Hard
Native range
SE. Kenya to Tanzania
Climate
wet tropical

About

Gymnosiphon usambaricus is a species in the plant family Burmanniaceae. It is endangered due to habitat loss with an estimated 2500 mature individuals left. It is native to Kenya and Tanzania, and is found in the leaf litter in evergreen forests.

Other Gymnosiphon plants

Gymnosiphon cymosus · Gymnosiphon suaveolens · Yellowseed

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gymnosiphon usambaricus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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