Pedilanthus - It Looks Fake

Here’s a plant with a monstrous name used in window garden decades ago. It is Pedilanthus tithymaloides - ped-i-LAN-thus and don’t worry about the rest of the name. I have grown the plant for three or four years, and recently I’ve been seeing it in other collections. Not once have I heard it called by a common name, but one encyclopedia lists redbird cactus, slipper-flower and Jew bush as common names.

It is a succulent plant, but I see no resemblance to a cactus. The stems are smooth, round, light green, and they grow up to four feet in height, depending on the amount of sun received. The stems grow in an interesting zig-zag fashion, and the leaves are light green, white and pink. It is said to flower, but my plant has never produced any of the clusters of red flowers that the plant is said to bear.

This plant has thrived in a sunny west window of our house, and it grows anywhere it is set in the greenhouse. A soil mixture made of equal parts loam, peat moss, leaf mold and sand seems to suit it. The plant does not have a marked resting period, but “starts and slows down” as the seasons pass. If the stems become gangly, the plant can be pruned to three or four inches, repotted, and new growth will shoot up rapidly. Cuttings root easily in moist peat moss and sand.

by E McDonald

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