Hahaha -- groaner, but I'm laughing.

Soxxx I checked my book, "Passalong Plants" by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing (great book!) and there was no mention of Methodist plants, nor Baptist plants either for that matter :-)

Let us know if you find anything out about it.

Okay, Jim, what happens if it is a Catholic plant????

Open the Southern Gardening forum and read what is posted there. Last post this month,

Some posters claim to know it but no one has posted a picture.

I read that yesterday after your post, and found it very interesting. I hope we can find out more about this elusive plant.

Hey Soxxx, joking aside, I read the post you referred to, and like Carrie, found it very interesting, so I did a search in Google Images, but just found pictures of 'Methodist' plant sales. I think they can post pictures there, and hopefully someone will.
Jim

As a child, I saw this on my mother's porch She had huge pots of these plants with deep green leaves that had purple blooms. The neighbor that shared them with her called them Methodist plants I have been looking for these for several years. They had to remain in the shade during the hot summers. They had dark green soft fuzzy leaves and the underside was purple like the blooms I would love to find out what they were.

Well, thanks to you Michelle, after 8 or 9 years we at least have a description of a Methodist plant. If there was a description in the original post referred to I don't remember it, But your remarks make me think of Moses in a cradle. Could this be it?

THIS may be the original discussion on the Methodist plant on Southern Gardening.

Michelle MARSH, google this purple flower, Tibouchina and see if that's what your mother had.

Following. I've never heard of Methodist plants.

I am the soxxx who wrote the original post asking about Methodist plant. I have asked several old country gardeners, asked members of the garden clubs that I belong to, and also asked at plant nurseries. I still have not encountered the first person who has even heard of it.

In the Southern Gardening Forum it was mentioned that the bulbs looked like pine cones. This is an achimenes bulb.

My wild guess: If you search for images of Kohleria rhizomes you get something that resembles pine cones and a search for Kohleria foliage shows them as velvety and the undersides of the leaves and the stems are described as "purplish".
In the images, some of the flowers are more red or orange but some do look purple. These gesneriads are supposed to be very easy to share. I have to say the Methodists I know are big Sharers ;-)