Q: Catopsis: cultivation

A: Cultivation is essentially the same as for Brocchinia. Grow Catopsis in extremely bright conditions, protect it from frost, and give it plenty of humidity. Water it by pouring purified water directly into the urn. You can feed it by tossing the occasional bug into the urn or leaf axils.

Propagation would be by pup when the plant dies after flowering. Apparently the plant often only makes a single replacement pup when the main plant dies, so pups may only help you maintain your plants and not propagate them. Hope for the best! The plant is reportedly mostly dioecious, so you would be lucky to get plants of both genders to cross them. However, some horticulturists have told me they have obtained seed readily from their plants, so it is unclear to me if the plants truly are dioecious. This may be a trait expressed only in some populations. Supposedly the fluffy, wind-dispersed seed germinate readily.

I grew this plant for a few years back in the early 1990s, and it wasn't at all difficult. I kept it sitting in a pot filled with coarse perlite, but only so it would not fall over. After two years of watching it produce leaves and lose leaves at almost exactly the same rate, increasing in size at a glacial pace, I become so bored I gave it away. I am not really too entranced by this plant.

I grew it again for several years starting around 2010. Yep, try as I might, it's still really a boring plant.

Page citations: Rice, B.A. 2006a; personal observations.