Ficus elastica 'Schrijveriana'
Shivereana · Moonshine · Rubber plant
- Family
- Moraceae
- Native to
- Eastern Himalaya to western Malesia (the species)
- Habit
- Tree
Where it comes from
The cultivarcultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary comes from nowhere anyone has written down. The species comes from a long way east of where the hobby usually puts it.
Kew’s native regions for Ficus elastica are Assam, Bangladesh, south-central China, the East Himalaya, Java, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Sumatra, Thailand and Vietnam.1 Note what is missing: India — the region proper, as against Assam and the Himalayan fringe — is on Kew’s introduced list.1 “Native to India” is wrong in a precise and slightly embarrassing way for a plant whose common name is the Indian rubber tree. There is also a live disagreement about how wide the range really is: a 2017 peer-reviewed treatment puts the known natural distribution much narrower, at western Java, southern Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, western Thailand and north Burma.2 Tier 1 against tier 2, and the page gives both.
In the wild it is a tree of about 30 m; indoors NC State expects 0.6-3 m.345
The origin of ‘Schrijveriana’ itself I could not establish, and I looked properly: POWOPOWOPlants of the World Online, Kew's database of accepted plant names and native ranges. Where a scientific name on this site comes from unless another authority is named.Glossary and IPNIIPNIThe International Plant Names Index. It records where and when a name was published, without ruling on whether it is the accepted one — that is POWO's job.Glossary return nothing on either spelling,67 the RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary record names no raiser and gives no date, there is no registration authority for Ficus to have registered it, and searches in Dutch as well as English returned only retailers. Nobody names a breeder. What is suggestive rather than evidence: the name is a Dutch patronymic, and both modern F. elastica sportssportA shoot that appears on a plant carrying a mutation the rest does not have. Propagated on its own, it becomes a new cultivar.Glossary that are documented arose in Dutch greenhouses.89 That is an inference and the page will not dress it up as provenance.
Naming and description
The name on your label is probably a misspelling, and the RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary knows the real one. The RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary carries this plant as Ficus elastica ‘Schrijveriana’ (v), and lists as synonymssynonymA botanical name that is no longer the accepted one for a plant, usually because the same species was described twice. Old books and plant labels are full of them.Glossary both F. elastica ‘Moonshine’ and Ficus shivereana ‘Moonshine’.10 ‘Schrijveriana’ is a Dutch patronymic — “of Schrijver”. ‘Shivereana’ reads as an English phonetic respelling that went on to displace the original in the anglophone trade, while the Dutch trade still sells it under the proper spelling. It also settles a question growers ask: ‘Moonshine’ is the same plant, not a separate sportsportA shoot that appears on a plant carrying a mutation the rest does not have. Propagated on its own, it becomes a new cultivar.Glossary.
The RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary describes it as an evergreen tree to 4 m or more, “with broadly elliptic glossy dark green leaves, heavily marbled with grey and margined with creamy-white; stalks and midribs red beneath”.10 Be warned that published descriptions of this cultivarcultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary do not obviously describe the same plant — sellers variously give cream marbling, grey mottling and pink new growth — which is what you would expect of a pattern that varies leaf to leaf.
Two size cautions. The RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary’s figures for ‘Schrijveriana’ — 2.5-4 m tall, 1-1.5 m across, over ten to twenty years — are identical to its figures for the plain species,1011 so they are inherited rather than measured for this cultivarcultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary. And the common claim that variegatedvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary rubber plants grow slowly has nothing above sellers behind it: the one extension source that rates a variegatedvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary F. elastica gives its growth rate as fast.12
It is not a registered cultivarcultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary, and strictly it could not be — there is no International Cultivar Registration AuthorityICRAAn International Cultivar Registration Authority: the body that registers cultivar names for one group of plants. Most genera have none, which is why so many trade names are unregistered.Glossary for Ficus.13 Nor is it patented: searches for “Shivereana” and for “Moonshine” both returned nothing, and the complete US plant-patent class listing for Ficus contains neither name.141516 Worth saying that the absence means less than it sounds: F. elastica cultivarscultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary are not commonly patented. Of the famous variegates only ‘Belize’ is, and its own patent describes it as a mutation of “Ficus elastica cultivarcultivarA plant selected and propagated by people rather than described from the wild. Written in single quotes after the species — Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' — and never italicised.Glossary Tineke, not patented”.8
Fun facts
- The propagation advice borrowed from variegatedvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary Monsteras is probably wrong here. Nobody has sectioned this plant’s growing tip, so calling it a chimerachimeraA plant built from cell layers of different genetics, one carrying a mutation and one not. Most stable variegation is a chimera, which is why it cannot be grown from seed.Glossary is an inference and this page says so. But the nearest evidence points away from the Monstera model in two directions. Both documented F. elastica variegates are described in their patents as whole-plant mutations that hold true in cuttings — ‘ESPE2006’ through ten generations.89 And the only histology anyone has published in this genusgenusThe rank above species: a group of species close enough to share a name. Monstera and Philodendron are genera; the first word of a botanical name is the genus.Glossary found F. rubiginosa ‘VariegatavariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary’ to be a GWG periclinal chimerachimeraA plant built from cell layers of different genetics, one carrying a mutation and one not. Most stable variegation is a chimera, which is why it cannot be grown from seed.Glossary,17 which is the stable class. On both readings an ordinary cutting should come true, and “take the cutting where the variegationvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary is” is advice imported from a different kind of plant.
- Reversion is still the thing to watch, and you cut it out. That much is the general rule and both extension sources state it plainly: to keep a chimeralchimeraA plant built from cell layers of different genetics, one carrying a mutation and one not. Most stable variegation is a chimera, which is why it cannot be grown from seed.Glossary variegationvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary you remove shoots that come back all green.1819 The pale tissue is a real metabolic cost rather than a cosmetic one — cells in white sectorssectorA block of tissue descended from one group of cells — the whole-half-leaf kind of variegation, as opposed to an even speckling.Glossary lack functional chloroplastschloroplastThe compartment inside a plant cell that does photosynthesis. White leaf tissue has none that work, which is why it cannot pay its own way.Glossary entirely — so an all-green shoot has a straightforward advantage and will take over if you let it.20
- It really was a rubber crop, and it really was second-rate. F. elastica was an important latex source before plantation Hevea displaced it; two independent sources note the rubber was inferior, which is the more useful half of the story than the date.221 The date, for the record, is not settled: sources put the displacement anywhere between the 1840s and the early 1900s.221
- “The ASPCA says the rubber plant is toxic to cats and dogs” is a miscitation. The ASPCA has no entry for Ficus elastica at all. The page everyone links is titled “Indian Rubber Plant” and its scientific name field reads Ficus benjamina, with the additional common names “Fig, Weeping Fig”.22 For this species the citable source is NC State, which does list it as a problem for cats, dogs and horses but gives no severity rating and no toxic principle.4 Singapore’s NParks calls the sap an irritant and Clemson says the same.323 On the natural-rubber-latex question — whether these plants are a risk to someone allergic to latex gloves — the clinical literature genuinely disagrees with itself, and the one place the allergen database mentions this species it flags it as a possible exception to the cross-reactivity seen across the rest of the genusgenusThe rank above species: a group of species close enough to share a name. Monstera and Philodendron are genera; the first word of a botanical name is the genus.Glossary.24 The best paper for the link identifies a genuinely shared molecule — hevein, cross-reacting with an endochitinase in F. benjamina — and concludes latex-allergic patients are at raised risk;25 other groups have argued the opposite. Neither reassurance nor alarm is supportable.
- VariegatedvariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary rubber plants are eighty years old as named things. IPNIIPNIThe International Plant Names Index. It records where and when a name was published, without ruling on whether it is the accepted one — that is POWO's job.Glossary carries F. elastica var. variegatavariegationPatches of leaf with little or no chlorophyll, so they read as white, cream or yellow. The pale tissue cannot feed itself, which is why a variegated plant grows more slowly than a plain one.Glossary Sata and var. rubrinervis Sata, both published in 1944.26 The current wave of collector variegates is new; the idea is not.
Care
- Light
- Bright indirect. UF/IFAS gives 100-200 foot-candles (roughly 1,100-2,150 lux) as the usable interior band, with a published 150 foot-candle floor for the fiddle leaf fig. Variegated cultivars want more than plain green ones, and a reverted all-green shoot should be cut out. Production light is an order of magnitude higher than anything indoors, which is the whole of the leaf-drop problem below.
- Water
- Sources genuinely disagree: UF/IFAS keeps interior plants moist, while Clemson, the RHS and NC State all let the surface dry first. The difference is commercial rotation against a plant you intend to keep, so let the top few centimetres dry. What is not in dispute is that saturated mix is the dominant killer — Rhizoctonia, Phytophthora and Pythium are all named on this genus in wet media.
- Humidity
- The one genus here where humidity is not the problem. Clemson says these tolerate the dry air common in homes, and no extension service, botanic garden or RHS page publishes an indoor humidity figure for any Ficus at all — so this record does not invent one.
- Temperature
- 65-80 °F (18-27 °C) year round, and UF/IFAS asks for above 60 °F (16 °C) at all times, including in transit. Clemson puts the floor at 55 °F (13 °C) and the RHS at 50-55 °F (10-15 °C); take the highest of the three. Chilling shows as slimy spots and mass leaf drop. Even temperature matters more than the exact number — every source names draughts and swings as a hazard.
- Substrate
- Any free-draining potting compost, slightly acid to neutral. Drainage is the only thing every source agrees on, because every named failure mode is a root rot in saturated mix. Keep soluble salts low.
- Fertilizer
- A 3:1:2 ratio feed, and rate it to the light rather than the calendar: UF/IFAS's whole fertiliser table is indexed to interior foot-candles, and a 20 cm pot in a moderately lit room wants around 2 g of 20-20-20 spread over four months. Feeding a plant in a dim corner at a bright-room rate does not compensate — it raises the light level the plant needs just to break even.
- Propagation
- Stem or tip cuttings, and air layering for anything large or reluctant; the trade uses tissue culture for small stock. Iowa State's air-layering guide names these species specifically: ring the stem right down to the wood, wrap in damp sphagnum and plastic, and expect roots in a couple of months. A cutting is at its most vulnerable to rot in the fortnight after it is taken.
- Dormancy
- None. UF/IFAS prescribes one temperature band all year with no cold rest, no dry rest and no break in feeding. Growth slows in winter because the light does, so water and feed less — but do not cool it down. The truly deciduous, winter-dormant Ficus is the edible fig, which is a temperate plant and not one of these.
- Common problems
-
- Leaf drop after a move is the defining behaviour, and it is not sulking: a plant grown in bright light has a much higher light compensation point, so in a dim room its leaves cost more than they earn and get dropped. A sun leaf cannot be retrofitted — the plant has to grow new ones, which takes months
- The colour of the fallen leaf is diagnostic. Yellow points at moisture stress; a leaf that falls still green points at low light, or at ethylene from a faulty heater, or at mercury from fresh paint nearby
- Root rots in wet mix — Rhizoctonia, Phytophthora and Pythium are all recorded on this genus, and cuttings and plugs are the most exposed
- Scale, mealybugs, thrips and spider mites, all of them easier to catch on a plant you look at weekly than on one you water and walk away from
- Leaf-shine products are actively harmful: in trials they roughly tripled leaf loss over a fortnight
- The sap is an irritant — ficin plus furanocoumarins, and NC State notes it bites harder in sunlight. Separately, and more seriously for anyone who works around these, Ficus is a real Type I airborne allergen: 27 per cent of interior-plantscaping workers carry IgE antibodies to it, against about 3 per cent of allergy-clinic patients generally