Re: identity of the dwarf Monstera deliciosa

From: "Peter Boyce" Boyce at pothos.demon.co.uk> on 2000.06.10 at 17:13:36(4708) Dear All There are two clones of true M. deliciosa in cultivation. One is a giant with roughened petioles and leaves up to metre long and wide with deep splits and lots of medium to quite large perforations. The other clone is a much more gracile thing with smooth petioles and smaller leaves with fewer perforations. This latter clone is the one that is most often sold commercially in Europe. The latter plant is also available in a white-variegated form. Both the giant rough-petioled and the smaller smooth-petioled plant, are stout climbers, are never slender-stemmed and viny in the way the so-called 'dwarf M. deliciosa' (i.e. R. tetrasperma) and both match very well M. delicosa in the wild in Mexico and Guatemala. Rhaphidophora tetrasperma is long-stemmed, slender and viny, leaves are seldom more than 25 cm long and wide, are few-splitting and have no perforations. Infloresecences are not more than 10 cm long (M. deliciosa produces much, much larger inflorescences, and are carried at the tips of long, often pendent, stems that hang free in the air (M. deliciosa flowers at the tips of stems clinging to the climbing surface. Best wishes Pete

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