Phyllotaenium

Species pages start from this and record only where they differ.

Light

Bright indirect — shade to partial shade in RHS's terms, an east, north or west aspect. The genus it was split from is shade-tolerant enough to be intercropped under cocoa and oil palm, so low light is not the risk; direct sun is, and the ivory veins scorch first.

Water

Evenly moist through the growing season, never waterlogged, then cut water off as the leaves die back and keep the resting tuber barely damp until spring. Ignore generic elephant-ear advice about standing water at a pond edge — that is Colocasia. This one is an upland plant and rots.

Humidity

High: warm, humid air is what the group wants. No source above a seller gives a number for it, and the one relative-humidity figure in the literature — 80% — describes a dormant tuber in cold storage and is not a growing-season target.

Temperature

68-86 °F (20-30 °C) in growth, and not below about 50 °F (10 °C). Start the tuber back into growth at around 68 °F (20 °C) in spring. A lifted tuber stores at 45-59 °F (7-15 °C); below roughly 45 °F (7 °C) it takes chilling injury.

Substrate

A fertile, free-draining, organic-rich mix that still holds moisture — bark and perlite with a decent share of compost or coir. Plant the tuber with its growing tip about 5 cm below the surface. Slightly acid to neutral, though it is not fussy in a pot.

Fertilizer

A heavy feeder while it is in leaf: balanced liquid feed at half strength every second or third watering from the moment growth restarts until the foliage begins to die back, then nothing at all until spring. Field rates for the crop relatives are potassium-heavy to bulk up a tuber and are not what you want from a plant grown for leaves.

Propagation

Division of the tuber and its offsets as it restarts in spring. Whole units sprout sooner and more reliably than cut pieces — a cut portion carries about five weeks of dormancy of its own, so a divided tuber doing nothing for a month has not rotted. Seed is not a home route.

Dormancy

Real, annual and expected — the foliage is deciduous. It dies back in autumn, the plant rests on its tuber, and it restarts in spring. Keep the tuber barely damp or lift and store it dry, stop feeding, do not repot. A plant kept warm and bright may only go semi-dormant and hold a leaf or two, which is also normal.

Common problems

• Autumn leaf loss is dormancy, not death — check the tuber is firm and wait. Watering, feeding or repotting a resting tuber is the commonest way to lose one
• Root and corm rot in cold, wet compost is the defining disease of the group: Pythium myriotylum needs no accomplice and can show symptoms within 48 hours
• Direct sun scorches, and the pale-veined tissue goes first
• Dasheen mosaic virus gives white feathering along the veins with puckering, and has no cure. It moves on aphids, on divisions and on unsterilised blades — but not in seed, so clean stock and a wiped knife genuinely work
• Spider mites, thrips, mealybugs and scale in dry indoor air; check for root mealybugs when a plant declines with nothing visible above the mix
• Every part carries calcium oxalate raphides. RHS rates it harmful if eaten and a skin and eye irritant — gloves when dividing tubers

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In the collection