| Life form | Herbaceous |
| Family | Acanthaceae |
| Origin and distribution | Africa (Ethiopia), South of the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) |
| Ease of cultivation | Unpretentious |
| The size | Up to 40-60 cm at home, periodic pruning is required, in nature – up to 1.8 m |
| Growth rate | High |
| Lifespan | Perennial |
| Temperature | In summer, the usual room temperature + 77-82,4 ° F is desirable, in winter it is possible to keep cool content at a temperature not lower than + 59 ° F. If kept in a warm and with sufficient light, then the plant can bloom in the winter. |
| Humidity | Require spraying, especially in the warm and dry air flow. Otherwise, the tips of the leaves may dry out. |
| Lighting | The brightest scattered light is preferable on the east or west window. In low light, the plant stretches and weakly blossoms or it may not bloom at all. In intense light, the Ruttya quickly loses its leaves and flowers can die off. |
| The soil | Any loose air permeable substrate can be used, for example, from equal parts of garden land, leaf land, coarse sand or perlite and peat |
| Watering | In the summer, water is applied as the upper layers of the soil dry out. In winter, if the plant is kept in a cool, watering should be reduced, but it should not be allowed to completely dry the soil. |
| How to fertilize | During the growth period, a complex fertilizer is applied approximately every 2 weeks, during flowering, fertilizing is applied for flowering plants. |
| Reproduction | Rutten is very easy to propagate vegetatively. Cuttings easily take root in water for 1-3 weeks. Can be propagated by seeds in a mixture of peat and sand. Seeds are lightly sprinkled with soil. Germinate in the dark, after the appearance of seedlings put a bowl on the light. |
| Bloom | The flowers are orange, red, yellow. Can bloom almost throughout the year. The flowers last about a week. Rutten, grown from cuttings taken from the earlier flowering plants bloom the following year. If you use seed reproduction, then flowering will come in 3-4 years. |
| Transplant and care | It is advisable to transplant annually as the root system grows. A transplant is necessary when the roots are shown from the drainage hole. The plant needs constant pruning, as it easily loses its shape and stretches out. You can grow and as an ampel, twisting the shoots around any support. |
| Difficulties | The plant is quite resistant to pests, occasionally there are spider mites, mealy worm. When the moisture is insufficient or excessive, the leaves turn yellow. In low light, the plant quickly stretches. With age, his lower leaves fall off, the stem is bare. This is an inevitable process, it will require pruning shoots. The root system can rot when grown in too heavy soil and excess moisture. |
| Beneficial features | – |
| Toxicity | The plant is poisonous |
