International Aroid Society

The difficulty I have with the "tropical storms" idea is that some fenestrated Monstera spp. occur in regions not subject to tropical storms, e.g. the premontane cloud forest of the Pacific coast of Ecuador. I will let growers address the matter of whether scandent Monstera with fenestrated leaves are any easier to pull away from the substrate than, say, scandent Philodendron with entire leaves.

I am not sure what you mean by "created." We may suppose that the primeval leaf was linear, like the branches of Equisetum or the needles of a conifer (think also of Lycopodium and Araucaria), and that the next evolutionary step was a broadening, so as to capture more sun. All the variations in leaves we see are developments in response to the requirements of different niches. The juvenile-stage leaves of a Monstera probably approximate the ancestral leaves, in parallel with the way various organisms' embryonic development hints at their evolutionary stages.

Jason Hernandez

Naturalist-at-Large

Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:16:47 -0800 (PST)
From: "E.Vincent Morano" <ironious2@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Holes
To: Discussion of aroids <aroid-l@www.gizmoworks.com>
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If these are tropical plants then perhaps is is so they dont get destroyed in tropical storms. If the plants have a weak root system and coulds easily bee uprooted then I think this is the likely reason. But now another question arises; Were they created like this or were the leaves full and somewhere along they line developed holes in them to adapt?

________________________________

From:aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com [mailto:aroid-l-bounces@www.gizmoworks.com] On Behalf Of John
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012
7:55 PM
To: ' Discussion of aroids '
Subject: [Aroid-l] Holes
?
Can anyone say what
might be the biological purpose of leaves with holes in them?? A typical
example would be Monstera deliciosa.
?
John.