Calathea vinosa

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

I posted one of these photos in another recent post (Gene's new leaf thread for non palms) and it got me thinking about this plant again. I looked back through my old emails and found one from Barry Hammel. He's the botanist I accompanied to a friend's property last September looking for a new species of Monolena. He sent me this link about a month later. It's to an article in MoBot's Manuel de Plantas de Costa Rica in "The Cutting Edge" section. It's actually a pretty interesting story of how PalmTalk reaches people all around the world and even helped discover a new plant species! At the end of the article when he says "the Calathea turned out to be Helen's new species" he is referring to C. vinosa.

Click here for article and additional photos

[ariscott]

Oh... thank you for the update, Jeff. Gorgeous calathea... I love the ruffled leaves... Pity they don't usually produce seeds...

Regards, Ari

[junglegalfla]

What a great story! Keep posting those pictures

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

Ari, your questions about it is what got me thinking to research this a little better. I had forgotten about that article since it was published last October. He mentioned in his original email to me that Helen Kennedy thought it was Calathea vinosa. It's an endemic Calathea, but unfortunately it's rarely found. BTW, that day he also collected a sample of a Paradrymonia species with very long leaves, which was another plant he spotted in my original post. Original post here

Thanks Bren

I wanted to mention also that our local horticulturist Donna Porter is the one that found the Monolena in flower and pointed it out to me. I took the photo and posted it on PalmTalk. I explained this to Barry but I guess he forgot to mention her. Donna was supposed to accompany us the day we went back to collect the herbarium specimens, but I believe she was out of the country at the time so he didn't get to meet her.

Also, when I said that we discovered a new plant species (the Monolena), I meant new to Costa Rica... not a new species

[KPL]

Jeff, those Calatheas are stunning. We have a few, but I'm not sure of the species. I haven't seen a flower as of yet. That story was most interesting.

I'll send a picture later today or tomorrow and maybe you'll be able to help me identify same. Thanking you in advance!

Karolyn

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

Karolyn, Please send me a photo when you get a chance. I'll see if it looks familiar to me. There are more than 3 dozen species found in Costa Rica but I'll do my best. The most common in this area is Calathea lutea which grow to 3 meters and has a silvery-white color on the back side of giant upright leaves. A large stand of them waving in the sunlight is a beautiful sight, however, the flower is not very impressive.

[Eric in Orlando]

Nice !!!! Send some to Agristarts so they can put it into tissue culture !!!

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

Eric, I will pm you about that.

The nice thing about this plant is that it can take full sun all day and it never burns or wilts.

[ariscott]

Full sun calathea??? That is even better....

Regards, Ari

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

Full sun calathea??? That is even better....

Regards, Ari

Ari, C. lutea and C. crotalifera both like full sun.

[ariscott]

I have both planted, Jeff... both brown & gold cigar, and yellow rattleshaker. Now I need to find red rattleshaker... unfortunately, they are hard to find!! Have you seen it in your neck of the woods?

But this calathea is the smaller variety, isn't it?

Regards, Ari

[Jeff in Costa Rica]

Someone I know has a red rattleshaker, now if I could just remember who mentioned that to me... Actually they said it was more of an orange-red.

My guess is that C. vinosa is a medium size plant. I read Helen Kennedy's descriptions and I believe she said they grow to 1.5 meters. I did see them flowering at less than a meter along a dirt road in the forest.

My plant book says C. lutea grows 1.6 to 4 meters tall, but here it's more common to see them growing near their maximum height of 4 meters. What's been your experience with lutea and crotalifera? They seem to be easy carefree plants to grow. I'm hoping C. vinosa will be too.