Plant Find: A new Gesneriad

Gesneriad is the "common name" for the family Gesneriaceae, like "Aroid" to Araceae.  The Gesneriad family includes some common houseplants like African Violets (Saintpaulia genus), Lipstick Plants (Aeschynanthus genus), Goldfish Plant (Columnea genus) and others.  There are quite a few people that collect Gesneriads.  They are admired for their colorful flowers, as well as the foliage of some species.  Many of the Gesneriads have common names that include "violet" in them, like African Violet and Flame Violet.  One of my Gesneriads is the "False African Violet" (Streptocarpus saxorum).

When I was at Lowe's recently there were two Gesneriads in hanging baskets that I had not seen before and both were really neat plants.  One was Alsobia dianthiflora and the other was Codonanthe devosiana.

Codonanthe devosiana

I left the Alsobia behind, but purchased the Codonanthe.  This hanging basket is very full and has lots of buds (like the picture below).  With my greenhouse heating problems a couple of weeks ago, I kept this plant inside.  I hope that the lack of light for a couple of weeks didn't prohibit these buds from eventually opening.

Codonanthe bud

Codonanthe devosiana bloom

I hope to see a lot more of these little white blooms all over my plant in another week or so.