varig8

Growing in Hawaii, as you experience, conditions are ideal for the Aeae. Yours is showing its appreciation by producing so many pups. In this case, it is not harmful to remove the majority of excess suckers. Ideally a good fruiting mat consists of the 'mother', a half grown kiki, and a smaller one emergent. This amount seems to produce the best fruit as not so many are still, (at least partially), feeding from the parent tree. You must remember that with Aeae, large portions of the tissue in the leaves without chlorophyll must be maintained via the normal green tissue. As the mother fruits and then dies it is replaced by the larger kiki, and next smaller one, and an emerging one-so this 'maintained' cycle continues. After the growth of 3-4 plants growing in the mat, then the excess suckers could be removed and replanted elsewhere. Often times entire white suckers (etiolates) will be produced which should be removed and thrown into the mulch pile. Occasionally entire green suckers will also be produced and these should also be removed so that the offspring from that will not overpower the variegated Aeaes. These reverted plants need not be thrown to the mulch heap however, of course these would grow and produce fruit as well. My point in the original posting was to allow the mat to develop with at least 3-4 plants before removal of any excess suckers to insure continued growth and to improve your chances of not having a huge loss and ending up with none!