What can I say. I love rexes with their audacious colors and many forms.

'Fireworks' has to be one of my favorites. Very showy and fairly easy to grow. 'Super Curl' (some sites have similar offerings called 'China Curl', 'Devils Paradise', and 'Chocolate Cream' is hard to beat for great colors and of course the curl. 'Can Can' (or 'Cancan') is an easy grower and has a silver sheen through summer and then almost turns red (dark pink) in fall (due to cold weather?). 'Deco Deviltry', 'Thor', 'Mr. Kartuz', 'Comtesse Louise Erdody' has that silver curl going for it, 'Sherry', 'Purple Curl', Purple Snow', 'Silver Dollar', 'Antoon's Variety', 'Stained Glass', 'Flippant', 'Helene Jaros', 'Wildfire' are a few that come to mind as being worthwhile. Some others that come to mind that I have or have had are 'Pink Champagne', 'Pink Diamonds', 'Blue Wings', 'Blue Boy', 'Venetian Red', 'My Good Friend', 'Alma Crawford', 'Peace', and some unknowns.

'Raspberry Curl', 'Raspberry Swirl', 'Lalomie' are winners in my book. They have become more mainstream (I had them in the past from Logees but lost them all). Now I have bought them locally except 'Raspberry Swirl' so I picked it up again from Logees. P.S. If you can buy them locally you generally will buy them bigger and cheaper but sometimes mail order is the last recourse.

'Escargot' is a difficult one for me to grow but the ones that I've seen grown to perfection are magnificent. A sport of it to me is a lot showier though - it is 'Nautilus' and may be a tad easier to grow. Also look at 'Fireflush' and 'Curly Fireflush'. Not sure if any of these are rex but they are in my book.

Now with the GAC (Great American Cities) rexes becoming the rage, we have a wider choice of colors and patterns. Check Plants for Kids for these exciting rexes along with the Constellation series ('Libra', 'Taurus', and 'Capricorn'). Check Lyndon Lyon, Logees, and Rob's Violets for some more exciting rexes. Some of the ones I got from PFK are 'Seattle Twist', 'Atlanta Jazz', 'New Orleans Masquerage, 'Charlotte Chiffon', 'Savannah Pink', and 'Denver Lace'. From Rob's I got 'Maid Marion', 'Hallelujah', 'Vista', 'Pandora', and 'Beau Rouge' to name a few.

Palm Hammock Orchid Estates (PHOE) and Kartuz have upright jointed rhizomes that look like they had some rex parentage in the past. Think of 'Little Brother Montgomery' and 'Connie Boswell' for example. I bought 5 new varieties from Kartuz in the fall and I have a huge leaf variety from PHOE that is hard to beat for color. It is 'Deco Twirl' but I bought it in person at PHOE two years ago. They also had 'Frances Valentine' which was smaller in stature but what wild colors. Unfortunately I lost that one.

I move all mine outdoors for summer where they usually put on an outrageous show from August through October.

Now if we could just get some of those exciting Japanese rexes, wouldn't life be grand?

I think the Escargot are awesome, my mom has a couple and they get better every year. Anybody have suggestions as to how to propagete those? I can never seem to find them, but she can. lol.

I only have one Rex that I bought yesterday. Not sure the variety, it was only labeled as "Hi I'm the Rex begonia assorted variety" or something like that. It has cool silver velvety leaves.

Best way to prop any rhizomatous begonia is by leaf cuttings. The way I learned was to cut a small circle around the leaf petiole and discard it (you can pot it up but it's incredibly slow to send up babies). If the leaf is a little ragged or dried at the edges you can cut that off too, but if it isn't cut it about half-way down the remaining leaf part, make a cone of it and pot it in whatever your favorite potting mix is--sphagnum moss and perlite is often recommended, or vermiculite and perlite, or just your regular mix with extra perlite. The cone will make a lot of small plants where the veins touch the soil and according to the Thompson Begonia book will make a nice full show plant faster. With the rest of the leaf you can cut it into wedges with a fairly large vein at the point of the wedge, and stick it in the same kind of potting mix. Probably helps to put it in a plastic bag or some kind of terrarium, tho' I've done lots without that. You can also find small growths coming off a rhizome and root those.
As to your 'assorted Rex begonia'--you may have trouble finding a name for it. I used to have a booth at the local Flower Festival, primarily in an attempt to start a begonia society here (unsuccesful, unfortunately, but more people are growing more kinds I think.) I used to get big beautiful Rex begonias from a local grower who raised hundreds from seed every year. No names unless perhaps he pulled out one he liked especially and named it, but I don't think he did. Six inch pots, very full, he sold to me for $3.00 and I sold for $4.00 I think. I bought a beautiful and easy-to-grow Rex at a begonia convention that had an incorrect name on it. Drat!

A wonderful place to buy begonia and many other great plants is Logee's greenhouse in Conn.They have a website and catalog,I've been buying from them for years, store and mail and have always been happy !!!Enjoy , Arlene

The only one I have is an Escargot and I LOVE it! I'm currently overwintering it as a houseplant and it's doing really well (even bloomed). My sister prefers the showy non-stops and picotees and with a huge new shade bed we will have lots of space to try them out. I'm hoping to sneak in a couple more rexes, they have such interesting foliage.

I am glad to see 'Fireworks' mentioned as I recently boughtit and I think it is not 'Fireworks' which was sent to me. A picture shown in one of the beautiful Japanese books shows it as a silver, entire leaf with green color radiating from the center of the leaf. As you can see, the plant I have is showing drip points and the color patternis different. What do you think?
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I don't think that is Fireworks. Fireworks does have a couple of different looks though - one is its juvenile stage and then its mature stage.

Juvenile
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Mature
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Your mature leaf resembles the Japanese picture most. I don't grow many Rexes, but I wanted 'Fireworks' as B. cathayana is a parent, as it is in 'China Curl', and I thought it might be interesting to cross them and see what the resulting seedlings might look like. I am seldom successful, though, in getting Rexes to bloom. Thanks for the response, I don't think my plant is correctly named.