Friday Fabulous Flower - Episcia

International travel and the recovery rom it has left the Phactor day and date disoriented. Almost let Friday slip away without posting a fabulous flower, not that there haven't been lots of nice flower posts of late, but TGIFFF. Today's flower, Episcia lilacina is a close relative of a couple of well known house plants in the gesner family. It's sort of funny; a plant like this is hard for many people to grow, and this species has not been used as a temperate house plant to my knowledge even though it has a larger flower than the two cultivated species in our greenhouse, but down in Costa Rican rainforests this lovely plant with it's pale lavendar flowers and varigated leaves with purple on their undersides grows upon bare clay banks in the dark understory. The problem with growing such a plant is quite simply the difference in humidity, and the arid winter air in our houses is just too dry for many tropical plants.