Philodendron 'White Wizard'
White Wizard
- Family
- Araceae
- Native to
- Mexico to tropical America and the Caribbean
- Habit
- Climber
Where it comes from
Unknown, and unusually so. No introducer, no nursery, no country, no date — not in Kew’s records, not at 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, not in the International Aroid Society’s 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 registry, and not in any plant patent.12 Every source that addresses the question says the hybridiser is unknown and nothing was filed. That is the finding, rather than a gap in the looking.
It is usually sold as Philodendron erubescens ‘White Wizard’, and that attribution is not documented either. Kew accepts Philodendron erubescens K.Koch & Augustin, described in 1854–55 and endemicendemicFound naturally in one place and nowhere else.Glossary to Colombia — 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 gives no other native country and records no 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 at all.3 But nothing above the retail tier connects 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 to that species. The clearest evidence is a patent application derived from the closely related ‘White Princess’, which states its parentage as self-pollination of “an unidentified selection of Araceae Philodendron White Princess” — an applicant with every reason to name a species declining to.4
There is a neat illustration of how the attribution got its authority. Wikipedia lists ‘White Wizard’ and ‘White Princess’ as P. erubescens 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 and cites a Clemson extension fact sheet. That fact sheet names twelve philodendron 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 and none of them is white.5 The hobby’s settled fact rests on a miscitation. This page therefore calls the plant Philodendron ‘White Wizard’ and leaves the species out.
Naming and description
The three white philodendrons are constantly confused, and the reliable way to tell them apart is not the leaf. Leaf 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 fluctuates between leaves and with light; the stem and petiolepetioleThe stalk that carries a leaf. Length, colour and texture often tell species apart when the leaves do not.Glossary do not.
- ‘White Wizard’ — green stem, green petiolepetioleThe stalk that carries a leaf. Length, colour and texture often tell species apart when the leaves do not.Glossary, and no red, pink or purple anywhere on the plant. 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 comes in large sectoral blocks on broad, rounded, heart-shaped leaves, the biggest of the three.
- ‘White Knight’ — deep burgundy to purple-brown stem and petiolepetioleThe stalk that carries a leaf. Length, colour and texture often tell species apart when the leaves do not.Glossary, streaked white, never plain green.
- ‘White Princess’ — green stem, but pink on the petiolepetioleThe stalk that carries a leaf. Length, colour and texture often tell species apart when the leaves do not.Glossary edges and in new growth, and the narrowest leaves of the three, closer to a spear than a heart.
So: pink means Princess, dark burgundy means Knight, entirely green means Wizard.678
Be clear about how well established that is. No taxonomic, extension or botanic garden source separates these three at all — the International Aroid Society, Aroideana, Exotic Rainforest and Aroidpedia do not treat them. What the distinction has is close agreement across five independent specialist and trade sources, one of them a tissue-culturetissue cultureGrowing plants from a few cells in sterile jars of nutrient gel. It is how a rare cultivar becomes a supermarket plant, and why prices for some of them collapse.Glossary laboratory that propagates all three.7 Useful, and not botanically settled.
Size is similarly unsettled: nursery figures for 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 run from 0.6 m to 3 m. The only measured anchor is the species — the RHSRHSThe Royal Horticultural Society. Its plant register and its Award of Garden Merit are among the few horticultural authorities worth citing.Glossary gives P. erubescens 2.5–4 m over five to ten years, with leaves to about 40 cm.9
Fun facts
- The white is 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, which is why every cutting is a bet. The plant is built of distinct cell layers, some carrying working 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 and some not, and a bud inherits whatever the layers hold at that point.1011 That is what produces the two behaviours growers actually see: a cutting from an all-green run stays green for good, and a cutting from an all-white run cannot feed itself and dies. 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 have no functioning 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.Glossary12 — they are fed by the green ones.
- Cut the green shoots out, and do it promptly. Green tissue photosynthesises and 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 tissue subsidises; left alone, the green reversion outgrows the rest and takes the plant with it.13 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 is reported to be the most prone of the three to throwing wholly green leaves,6 which makes the pruning less optional than it sounds.
- Tissue culturetissue cultureGrowing plants from a few cells in sterile jars of nutrient gel. It is how a rare cultivar becomes a supermarket plant, and why prices for some of them collapse.Glossary can lose the pattern, and there is a Philodendron study showing it. Shoots regenerated from a single cell layer come out of the 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 as one thing or the other.14 When researchers regenerated Philodendron ‘White Knight’ from petiolepetioleThe stalk that carries a leaf. Length, colour and texture often tell species apart when the leaves do not.Glossary explantsexplantThe piece of a plant a tissue-culture lab starts from — a petiole, a leaf disc, a shoot tip. Which tissue it is taken from decides what grows back, which is why some variegation cannot survive the process.Glossary, most shoots came out plain green with only a subset 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.15 The same effect has been shown cleanly in another 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 ornamental, where regenerants segregated into green or albino shoots while non-chimeral controls came true.16 Which is the mechanical reason these plants resist the mass propagation that made every other houseplant cheap.
Care
Plant care- Light
- Bright indirect, and genuinely tolerant of medium light: they hold on at very low levels, but leaf size and colour need a few times more than that. The velvet-leaved species burn in direct sun more readily than the glossy climbers do.
- Water
- Keep evenly moist without being wet. Water when the top 2-3 cm has dried; the thinner-leaved species wilt visibly and recover quickly, which makes them easy to read.
- Humidity
- 50% is enough for most. The velvet-leaved species want 60-70% and show it immediately when they do not get it.
- Temperature
- 64-81 °F (18-27 °C). Growth stops around 59 °F (15 °C), and chilling damage starts below about 50 °F (10 °C) without any frost.
- Substrate
- Airy and bark-heavy for climbers; a slightly finer mix with more coir for the crawlers, which root along the surface rather than down.
- Fertilizer
- A balanced feed at half strength every third watering in growth. Velvet-leaved species are sensitive to over-feeding — the leaf edges go first.
- Propagation
- Node cuttings for climbers; for crawlers, cut the rhizome between leaves leaving at least one node and one root per piece.
- Dormancy
- None, but growth slows in winter. Reduce water and stop feeding.
- Common problems
-
- Yellow leaves with brown wet spots are overwatering; yellow with crisp edges is dry air or underwatering
- Velvet-leaved species mark if water sits on the leaves
- Long gaps between leaves and small leaf size mean the plant wants more light or something to climb
- Thrips are the usual culprit behind stippled, silvery new growth
- Yellow lesions in a mosaic pattern are a virus: no cure, isolate or discard
- Every part carries calcium oxalate crystals: the sap irritates skin, and a chewed leaf burns the mouth. Poison-centre records show it is rarely worse than that, but keep it away from pets and children anyway