Help identify my plant?
September 20, 2016 1:18 PM   Subscribe

I've had this plant for many years already and cannot remember if i bought it or if it was a gift. I'm trying to find out it's name so i can research the best way to care for it and propagate it.

Once in a while it will produce a sort of "flower" like appendage, a bit like an arum plant, that eventually sorts of gets mushy, rots and falls off. I don't have a picture of that flower thing. My boyfriend says he's seen them outdoor in the wild in cities in Brazil. Here it is strictly an indoor plant.
Any idea what this plant might be?
Thanks!
posted by PardonMyFrench to Home & Garden (5 answers total)
 
Does the "flower" thing look something like this?

If so, I'd say some kind of all-green dieffenbachia, like Dieffenbachia longispatha.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:44 PM on September 20, 2016


I think it's probably an Aglaonema of some sort - there are about a billion different cultivars. Your "like an arum plant" is a good instinct because it's definitely an Aroid. Bright diffuse light, a little humidity wouldn't go awry. Don't baby it too much, but keep it out of drafts. The Ags are often called (collectively) "Chinese Evergreens" if that helps.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:03 PM on September 20, 2016


Response by poster: Yes, Sparklemotion the flower thing looks indeed a bit like your picture, except mine tends to rot before it matures enough to unfurl all the way.

Thanks I'll look into that plant family to hopefully find the right cultivar.
posted by PardonMyFrench at 10:45 PM on September 20, 2016


Best answer: That is actually a Philodendron, P. martianum. It's native to southeast Brazil, and in the Araceae (arum family). The flower-like appendage is called an inflorescence, to distinguish it from a "flower:" on aroids the true flowers are tiny and numerous, and located all up and down the spadix (the sort of phallic part of the inflorescence); the hood surrounding the spadix is the spathe (ask me how I know!). More about P. martianum here.

I haven't grown one of these personally, though I've grown a lot of Philodendrons; I don't have the impression that they're unusually difficult or anything. Bright indirect light or maybe some sun filtered through other plants / trees / sheer curtains, temperature above 60F/16C, water thoroughly when the soil is mostly dry.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:15 AM on September 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Oh, and -- you can propagate it if it forms a new growing tip with a new rosette of leaves (most likely from near the soil line), by letting the new rosette of leaves get about 1/3 the size of the mature plant and then cutting it off with a sharp knife, but there's not any way to force that to happen. In the horticultural business, it's probably propagated mainly by seeds, and for that you'd need two plants to bloom with exactly the right relative timing, plus a lot of patience.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:19 AM on September 21, 2016


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