# Pogostemon Octopus ?



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Anybody growing this ? I think I have some, it's pretty interesting but what little I can find about it indicates it's highly variable. Pics to come.

Some of it's turning burgundy under the new leaves, some stays green. Four leaves at every node, long and thin, makes it very pretty when it's in one piece but it's fragile and breaks rather easily.


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## cb1021 (Sep 21, 2009)

Fishfur said:


> Anybody growing this ? I think I have some, it's pretty interesting but what little I can find about it indicates it's highly variable. Pics to come.
> 
> Some of it's turning burgundy under the new leaves, some stays green. Four leaves at every node, long and thin, makes it very pretty when it's in one piece but it's fragile and breaks rather easily.


Can you post a photo? Never seen this plant


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'll see if I can persuade my phone to transfer a pic to the computer. ( something that does not always work the way I'd wish it would). 

I had a heck of a time figuring out just what it was that I had after I bought them from Aquatic Kingdom - they had no clue what they were but they were really attractive and I went back and bought the last ones they had on hand. All they could tell me was that they came from SE Asia.

Pics I found online were not that much help with ID because it turns out that this plant is annoyingly and highly variable. Some of the new growth I'm getting looks pretty different from the parent stems already, so it may be really sensitive to different growing conditions. 

Some pics I ran across that showed plants labeled P. Octopus that were much more similar to P. stellata. My plant's leaves are up to six inches long and only about 3/16"wide at the widest point, with just a few very shallow notches. Some of the new growth that showed up was a pale burgundy on the underside. which was really pretty, but they have not all shown the colour. I have quite a few stems from the varous bunches I bought. The one common characteristic is that all the plants called Octopus have four leaves at each node, like P. helferi does.

I just found out that Angelfins is selling it, but the pic they have looks nothing like my plants do. Their pic resembles others I've seen online though. I'll see if I can get a pic up tomorrow, the phone's dead at the moment, sorry .


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