Monstera deliciosa

Swiss cheese plant · Ceriman

Family: Araceae
Native to: Mexico (Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas) to Guatemala
Habit: Hemiepiphytic climber
Also known as: Monstera borsigiana, Philodendron pertusum

My plant

A Monstera deliciosa leaf photographed from below, its yellow-green midrib and lateral veins lit through the blade, holes scattered either side.

A broad Monstera deliciosa leaf with deep marginal splits and rows of oval holes, seen against a pale indoor background.

A Monstera deliciosa leaf held toward the camera, its splits and oval holes arranged along a pale midrib.

Woody aerial roots and a thick stem of a Monstera deliciosa in close focus, a room out of focus behind.

The woody tangled stems and aerial roots of a Monstera deliciosa rising from a pot of gritty mix.

Roots and moss visible through the clear plastic sleeve of a moss pole, held on with green ties.

Where it comes from

Southern Mexico — Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas — down to Guatemala. That is Kew’s range,¹ and it is a good deal narrower than the “Mexico to Panama” you will see almost everywhere else.²³ Kew records Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua as places it has been introduced, not places it is from.¹

In the forest it starts on the ground and climbs. A related Monstera was shown to do something odd on the way: seedlings grow towards the darkest part of the horizon, which is where the nearest big trunk usually is, and only switch to chasing light once they have found something to climb. The behaviour is called skototropism, and the study that named it worked on Monstera gigantea in Costa Rica rather than on this species, so read it as a family trait rather than a proven fact about deliciosa.⁴⁵ Once it is climbing, each leaf comes out larger and more split than the last as the plant gains height and light,² and the wild plant can top twenty metres.³ The one on a windowsill is the seedling stage of that, and never quite stops wanting to go up.

Naming and description

The Danish botanist Frederik Liebmann described it in 1849, in the journal of the Copenhagen natural history society,⁶ having collected in Mexico through the early 1840s. The epithet means what it says: deliciosa is about the fruit.

It has picked up eight synonyms since,¹ two of which still cause trouble. Philodendron pertusum is why very old books file it under the wrong genus. Monstera borsigiana, described in 1862 and demoted to a variety in 1908, is still sold as if it were a separate plant; Kew treats both the species and the variety as synonyms of deliciosa.⁷⁸ Growers use “borsigiana” for a smaller-leaved form with longer gaps between nodes, and there may be something to it in the pot; there is nothing in the name.

Fun facts

The fruit is edible, and unripe it is a mistake you make once. It takes twelve to fourteen months from flowering to ripen, and ripens from the base up, scale by scale, until the scales fall off on their own. Ripe, it tastes somewhere between pineapple and banana. Unripe, it is full of needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals that burn the mouth and throat.²³ The rest of the plant carries the same crystals, which is the whole of its toxicity to cats, dogs and children.²
Nobody is sure why it has holes. The older ideas — letting rain through to the roots, shedding heat, looking already eaten — do not hold up well. The best current hypothesis is that a perforated leaf spreads the same tissue over a wider area, so in an understorey lit by unpredictable sunflecks the plant’s growth varies less from year to year. It is a model with a testable prediction, and the test has not been done.⁹
The holes are not torn. They are made by programmed cell death while the leaf is still rolled up in the bud: a small disc of cells dies on schedule, detaches as the blade expands, and the rim heals over as epidermis. That was shown in a cousin, Monstera obliqua, and older work found the same in this species.¹⁰ A leaf never gains a hole after it opens.
It does not like the cold. Leaves are damaged at about freezing and stems a couple of degrees below;³ indoors, 61–84 °F (16–29 °C) is the comfortable band.²

Care

Plant care

2 things below differ from general Monstera care.

Light differs from general Monstera care: Copes with less light than most of the genus, but pays for it in leaf size. On a mature plant, a leaf that opens without splits is a light problem long before it is an age problem.
General Monstera care: Bright indirect. An east window, or a few feet back from a south or west one. Direct midday sun scorches the leaves; deep shade produces long internodes, small leaves and no fenestration.
Water: Water thoroughly once the top 2-5 cm of mix has dried, then let it drain completely. They tolerate a short dry spell far better than they tolerate sitting wet.
Humidity: Moderate to high. Numbers are hard to source; what is documented is that dry air browns the leaf edges. The link people draw between low humidity and fewer fenestrations is not — light is what decides that.
Temperature: 64-84 °F (18-29 °C). Growth stops around 50 °F (10 °C), and chilling damage — wilting, water-soaked patches — starts below about 50 °F (10 °C) without any frost. Keep them off cold glass and out of winter draughts.
Substrate: Chunky and free-draining — roughly equal parts orchid bark, perlite and coir. Straight potting compost holds too much water against the roots.
Fertilizer: A balanced feed at half strength every second or third watering through spring and summer. Little or none through winter.
Propagation differs from general Monstera care: Unusually easy. A single node with an aerial root will take in plain water; it moves to soil more happily if rooted in sphagnum instead.
General Monstera care: Stem cuttings with at least one node, ideally with an aerial root attached. Roots readily in water, sphagnum or straight into a chunky mix.
Dormancy: No true dormancy, but growth slows markedly in low light and cool temperatures. Cut back watering to match.
Common problems: Yellowing lower leaves are usually too much water or too little light, and rarely too little water
Crisp brown edges point at dry air, or salts accumulated from feeding
New leaves opening without fenestration usually means not enough light
Spider mites and thrips establish quickly in dry air — check the undersides
Every part carries calcium oxalate crystals: toxic to cats, dogs and children if chewed, and the sap can irritate skin

These photographs also live in the gallery .