yes, from a single leaf, like AVs. At least as easy as AVs and probably easier - I stuck a couple of tiny leaves in equal parts peat, vermi. and perlite, next to some mini AV leaves and voila! The one I tried was forestii.

I'm having great luck propagating pets from leaves. Since the leaves are small I have been using whole leaves. I haven't tried them in a mix like Komi's (a standard growing mix); but, I should. I have been using perlite/vermiculite. I put the leaves down in small square pots in little rows, and then line up the pots in a 10/20 flat. I put a dome over the flat and grow them under lights. The leaves root easily--generally at about 85-100%. Then comes the waiting game--waiting for the baby leaves to come up and form a small rosette, which can be separated and grown on. This can take quite a while. It may be that I am just not fertilizing the babies and rooted leaves enough to get them to grow more quickly. Maybe using a 1-1-1 mix like Komi and then feeding more often would speed up the process. I find that even the tiniest leaves will root and make babies. Also leaves that are turning yellow will usually root and sprout as well.

However, the rate of rooting, sprouting and growth of the babies varies by the species and variety. I am finding, for example, that the new species known still as 'G25KC00' sprouts new plantlets very fast (but they grow slowly to dividing size). On the other hand, P. minor rounded leaf form seems to be taking forever. The pointed leaf form of minor seems to be quicker. P. forresttii grows pretty fast. P. sericea seems to be pretty slow too. Leaves are really the only way to quickly propagate and make back-ups for ones plants. I recommend everyone do this with all their petrocosmeas and rosulate chiritas. You can't have too many. Often times leaves will put up more than one new plantlet. But, I would always suggest when planning propagations for a given date to give yourself at least six to nine months if you hope to have salable sized plants for 2" pots. The alternative to leaves is to wait for the rosettes to offset, and then remove and root those. If left on the main plant long enough they will separate with their own roots.

Jon

thanks to Jon, I had success propagating chiritas and columneas in the perlite and vermiculite mix. I didn't need it for forrestii, though.

This is a pic of an impromptu propagation round - I was discarding a scale-infested mini AV and put down some leaves. As I had space left over, I put down a couple of other things. The picture is 22 days after I put the leaves down.

There are two tiny forrestii leaves in the pic - one in the upper right that has rooted, and another under the "row" of two AV leaves. That one has put out a little leaf. There are also a couple of small codonanthe cuttings in the bottom right - I usually propagate those by pinning them down to the soil, but decided to try sticking cuttings in the tray.

I have a P. begoniifolia that lost a couple leaves (with no stems on them) would it be possible to dip in rootone & try to root in perlite/vermiculite, without the leaf rotting? Thanks

Judy -- try it, what do you have to lose besides the leaves that will otherwise hit the trash. I have rooted a bunch of petrocosmea leaves, including begoniifolia, this winter -- and they all rooted and produced plantlets very fast. All mine had stems, I think, but on the other hand they were all baby leaves, so tiny that I didn't think they'd survive, and they did. So my guess is that petrocosmeas are easy to propagate no matter what, even without stems. I didn't use any rooting hormone on any of mine, and they still rooted very fast.

Judy -

I would cut the leaves on the sides creating an artificial stem - same for petrocosmeas as we do on avs - creating the wedge on the bottom with the main vein in a middle- and skip rootone. This time of the year - everything roots very fast.

Irina