Snowy day cure? New Neofinetia!

[MattWoelfsen]

Rasha Chabo Nishiki 羅紗矮鶏錦 is a poorly documented Neofinetia plant. I have not seen any other description other than what I understand the Romanji stands for--which is a little risky for non-Japanese to translate. I'll try anyway. Hopefully friends like "Hakumin" will see this thread and opine! Here goes my version: Rasha and Nishiki are two Romanji words that describe texture. When these two words come together, they give the understanding that the plant is a rough textured plant. Nishiki is often used to describe texture, not variegation. The word "chabo" is in English "chicken". But I think in this case, chabo describes how the leaves are upright, like the tail feathers of a rooster. Roosters are highly venerated animals in Asia. In fact, this is the Year of the Rooster. Back to this plant. Rasha Chabo Nishiki is a rough textured upright leafed Furan. That is my take but I defer to anyone to correct my understanding of this plant.

Yodo-No-Matsu 淀の松 is a bean leaf plant. It is very similar to Tomakongou but the difference is their provenance. Tomakongou is from a morph of Amami Island Furan and is considered one of the first bean leafs so identified. Yodonomatsu is another bean leaf from another location in Japan, I think it comes from Kyoto. Again, this could be incorrect. Yodonomatsu can grow larger than Tomakongou but my plant is smaller than my Tomakongou. However Yodo does clump up to appear like a multi-branched pine tree. Hence its name.

[Hakumin]

Originally Posted by MattWoelfsen

Hopefully friends like "Hakumin" will see this thread and opine!

Sorry, I have found zero information about Rasha-Chabo-Nishiki.

I can say though that the name seems to carry a description as you were guessing. Rasha implies a texture to the leaves. That one seems to be clear with no issues in regards to this plant.

Chabo implies the shape of the plant. However, Chabo doesn't mean that the leaves are upright, but it rather means that the leaves are short, but not to the extent of a Bean leaf variety. "chabo" plants can have upright or curved leaves.

In Japanese horticulture, in many varieties of plants with shorter leaves will be described as Chabo. Literally, the translation of Chabo isn't "chicken" per se, but rather a specific breed of chicken, the Japanese bantam. The name isn't used to compare the shape of the plant to a chicken or its plumes, but rather it is comparing the size of the plant to a bantam. In the same way a true Bantam chicken breed is smaller than a standard breed, a Chabo plant variety, is smaller than a standard variety.

Nishiki, does in fact most often imply variegation. As far as I have seen, it has never been used to describe texture of a leaf, but in some cases it implies anthocyanin pigmentation or a particularly vibrantly colored flower. In all cases though, the implication is a unique pattern or color. I have no clue why it might have been applied to this variety name though.

Questions about this variety are probably going to be best answered by Seed Engei. The name does not bring up any meaningful results on google in Japanese or Korean, and the 15 or so books on Neos I have don't mention it. The only online result is an old Seed Engei price list.