The genus is represented by perennial herbaceous plants or semishrubs, in which the tuberous rhizomes are pronounced. Leaflets in plants are ovoid, they are oblong, opposite. On the edges they are crenate. Their length can be up to 15 cm, and the width - up to 8. The surface of the leaves is densely puffy. Different species differ in different color streaks of leaves. They can be olive green with a light vein centered, dark green with red veins, ribbed, shiny with reddish or white dense pile. In hybrids, the color of the leaves can be bronze, and also silver.
The flowering of the colourways passes abundantly. Flowers can be single, and can be located on the axillary peduncle by 2 or even 3. The flowers are corolla-bell-shaped, with a tube, they reach a length of five centimeters. From below the tube is slightly swollen, and to the yawn is narrowed. Often florets can resemble thimbles. Zev has them wide open, he has 5 shares, they are covered with a multitude of strokes, dots. Color of flowers is various: it can be pink, zev - white with dark pink speckles; orange-red, zev - yellow with dark red patches; chestnut-brown, zev - white with a pattern of pink color, etc.
The content of cola is much simplified if compared with other members of the family. Their demand for moisture and temperature is reduced. They grow well in the usual conditions of the average apartment.
Calaria: caring for plants.
Indoor plants, coloring grow better in diffused light, when they do not get light directly. The best place to accommodate these plants is the western windows or the eastern side. On the southern side of the plant should be placed far away from the windows or it is necessary to create diffused light with the help of translucent fabric, gauze or paper, tulle, tracing paper. In northern windows, a plant may not have enough light to blossom. In winter, plants should be placed in more lighted places.
For coloring in the spring and in the summer, a temperature of about 26 degrees is needed. In winter, the temperature should be reduced to 18 degrees.
In the spring and in the summer season, these houseplants should be watered regularly. Repeat irrigation is necessary when the upper layers of the substrate have already dried. In autumn it is necessary to water less and less often. But you do not need to bring the land to dryness completely. To water plants it is necessary accurately to avoid water hit on leaves. That is why the advantage should be given to the lower watering. Water better than water with colier, which has become soft, settled.
The level of air humidity for the coloring should be increased, although the dry air of apartments for its growth is also not a hindrance. Spraying of collyum is not necessary. In order to increase the humidity, you only need to put a pot of the plant on wet pebbles, peat or expanded clay. The bottom of the pot should not reach the water.
Feed the plant weekly every day throughout the year. Fertilizer should be selected mineral, complex, better for flowering plants. From autumn until the first days of spring, the plant should not be fed.
Koleriya - plants that blossom begin in the second half of summer and until autumn.
When there is a period of rest, the plant leaves and shoots do not die off. This they differ from the ahimens. Colonies do not necessarily need to remove leaves and stems. But those florists, who have enough experience, still cut too long shoots to stimulate rooting. But first the plant must be placed in a place where the temperature would be lower. But it should not go beyond the level of 12 degrees. During the rest period, watering the plant should not be abundant, but it should not be allowed that the land is completely dry, because the life of the plant does not end even at this time.
Transplant plants when it becomes necessary, for example, when the earth is completely braided with roots. And then, they do not transplant the koleri, but "overload" it into a larger volume. The pot must be shallow. The land should include leafy, soddy land types, sand. It is necessary to add charcoal to the substrate and drainage.
The plants of colaery can be propagated with the help of seeds, apical cuttings and rhizomes. Seeds of the plant must be sown from January to the first days of February, without toppling the earth. The land should include sand and a sheet type substrate. After sowing, the earth is spilled and the dishes are covered with glass. While the seedlings did not appear, the glass should be periodically removed for air intake. The temperature for germination should be about 24 degrees. Shoots must be dived in boxes at a distance of two centimeters. A little later, when the shoots take root, we must hold another picking after 3 cm. When the seedlings have developed, they are planted in small pots one by one. The land should include leafy, peaty, light turf types of substrates, plus a piece of sand.
For reproduction by cuttings, it is necessary to take only the upper parts of the shoots. They need to be rooted in a mixture of sand and sheet substrate (or just in the sand), moisten and cover with glass. If moisture is excessive, the cuttings can rot. For cuttings, the lower heating should be arranged and treated with stimulants directed to root formation, for example, by rooting or heterouaxin. When the cuttings take root well, they must be transplanted into the soil that is suitable for adult plants.
Difficulties in growing.
The leaves can be covered with brown, rusty spots due to watering with unheated water.
The leaves can also turn pale and become covered with spots of a yellowish hue. This can happen because of excessive fertilizer exposure and direct sunlight.
Leaves can be covered with a touch of gray. This is a fungal disease. Often this can be because of the excess moisture in the air and earth. Twist leaves due to lack of moisture, so you can spray the water next to the plant from the spray, but the plant does not fall.
If there is no flowering for a long time, or it is, but weak, it is a sign of insufficient lighting, nutrition, dry air. Poor influence and waterlogging. The temperature of the content may be too high (or very low).
The plant needs light all 12 months. In winter, from its lack of leaflets can begin to wither.
The plant can damage the mealybug, spider mite. The colic is prone to infection with thrips. It can damage the whitefly and the scabbard.