Platycerium willinckii 'OMG'
OMG

What the name refers to

OMG is one of the dwarf selections of Platycerium willinckii, from the same batch as Jade Girl, Golden Boy and Nano. It is a trade name, not a registered cultivar, with no registration document to check against. Taiwanese collectors count it among the "six legends".

How to recognise it

• Short, broad, repeatedly forked fronds. PlatyWiki describes OMG as short and wide with many divisions, and calls it one of the more advanced dwarfs.
• Thick silver-grey. The mature plant photographed in Taipei at the top of this page shows that heavy silvered tone.
• Small. Dwarf willinckii typically mature at 15–30 cm, a third to a fifth of an ordinary plant.

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True dwarfs and false ones

This is the thing to understand before buying any dwarf willinckii. According to the selector, Huang Yuan, writing on Facebook, Indonesian collecting areas were later combed for wild plants that merely looked dwarf — and almost all turned out to be false dwarfs, growing back to normal size once conditions improved. A true dwarf is a genetic growth defect and appears very rarely.

So you judge a dwarf by origin and mature form, not by how small it looks today. Every juvenile looks small.

How care differs from the species

The Platycerium willinckii principles still apply, but dwarfs have their own temperament:

• Slow. The growth defect makes it slow. That is not your fault.
• Cooler suits it. Collectors generally use a cool room with grow lights. In unsuitable conditions it simply stalls — neither growing nor dying.
• Pups take years. A pup carrying the same dwarf traits usually means waiting two to three years.
• Less water. A small plant in little medium stays wet longer.

Three questions before you buy

1. How was it propagated? Mass-produced sporelings can revert to an ordinary willinckii.
2. Can you see a mature plant? Dwarfism only counts once the plant is grown.
3. Has the name travelled with the plant? The same plant does get renamed between markets.

Where the name came from

PlatyWiki cites a Facebook post by the selector, Huang Yuan: in 2016–2017 he had contacts search Indonesian collector circles and four dwarf willinckii were found — later named Golden Boy, Jade Girl, OMG and Nano, none of which had individual names at the time. The entry itself notes that this account is repeated from the internet and unverified, and we pass it on the same way.