There is an enormous family of plants called the Rubiaceae. It comprises certainly 400 or more genera, and many thousands of species. The most common genera include the mussaenda, ixora, gardenia, coffee and quinine, and as you can see by this very short list, many plants are highly desirable from an ornamental viewpoint and many more have commercial (coffee) and medicinal (quinine) value. All of these are to be found in Guyana, and some are native to this country as well as to nearby countries.

The mussaenda originated in the Old World tropics and is one of the most spectacular shrubs available to us. The best and most commonly planted mussaenda are the pink, white, and the red varieties of Mussaenda erythrophylla. Strictly speaking their attraction comes not from the flowers but from their enlarged and highly coloured sepals.  Mussaenda are not naturally tidy plants and have a tendency to straggle. This can be corrected quite easily if they are pinched back or cut back from the time they are youngsters in order to make them bushy. In fact quite old plants can be cut back and shaped very nicely even if they have been neglected in their early years.

Some of the colour types of mussaenda (red, for example) have always been thought difficult to propagate. I have managed to root all of them with varying degrees of success. Certainly all of …..