What caused stem to drop from peperomia obtusifolia variegata?

February 24, 2021 10:25 AM

Here are some pics. This was an older part of the plant and the leaves were always pale. The brown stem is firm, not soft or mushy, and has moisture inside when I snapped it in two). I water infrequently, always let the soil dry out between watering, and rarely fertilize (and never in winter). I repotted it into a slightly larger pot last year and moved it into brighter light for the winter, and the rest of the plant looks great. TIA!
posted by Majorita to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Best answer: Two things come to mind -- one, it was just an old stem and that kind of thing is normal and/or two, lack of sufficient water or the absence of consistent watering. I don't think it is root rot since it would be more mushy, but I have had plenty of more hearty plants where the stems look mushy/rotted (but aren't) when they've been under-watered. If the rest of your plant is healthy, I would just keep an eye on it to see if it happens again.
posted by SoulOnIce at 10:58 AM on February 24, 2021

Best answer: I have one of these and I think you may be underwatering and underfeeding. I feed my houseplants all year around and use a long-release fertilizer like Osmocote. The combination of underwatering and underfeeding stresses the plant and could lead to the plant sacrificing stems.
posted by quince at 11:35 AM on February 24, 2021

Best answer: I'm inclined to think that some degree of this is just normal for P. obtusifolia,[1] as I've had one for 13 years that has always done this occasionally. The only pattern to it I've ever been able to discern -- and I'm not confident this one is even real -- is that it seems to be more common in fall and winter. (It might also be more connected to underwatering than to overwatering, but I'm even less confident about that one. Though SoulOnIce and quince make me think there might be something to the theory after all.)

The possibly-good news is that the plant has essentially taken a cutting of itself for you, if you want to try propagating it. Just cut the stem about a half-inch below where it begins to turn in a different direction, give it a few hours to dry out, and then put it in a small pot of its own (3 or 4 inches in diameter, ideally clay if you've got it) in a bright location and water when the soil is dry as far down as you can get a finger. It's not a sure thing, but when I've done this with P. obtusifolia, I got new plants out of it about 50% of the time.
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[1] Though as a side note, I think your plant is actually a P. clusiifolia, which is very similar but (in my experience) a bit fussier and more inclined to do stuff like this. If it gets pink/red leaf margins when in bright light, or had pink/red leaf margins when you bought it, I'd be even more confident about the species. As it is, I'm going more by the leaf shape (clusiifolia is more oblong / irregular; obtusifolia is more nearly circular), as well as a couple things I can't even pin down well enough to put into words. It just, you know, looks like a clusiifolia.

(clusiifolia 1, clusiifolia 2, obtusifolia 1, obtusifolia 2).

My image search results for either species include a few photos of the other species, so if you don't see a difference between the two leaf shapes and don't understand what I'm talking about, you're not alone.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 6:53 AM on February 25, 2021