Tropicals & Tender Perennials: The most saught after philodendron in the world., 1 by bwilliams

bwilliams wrote:
I have for years tracked down odd and rare philodendrons. But this one though I have seen it a few times can never land in my hands. This plant has a unique story to it. Not to mention collectors around the world have this one their wish list, its average price is 1000.00 or more. But that is only when the plant is up for sale. I have been waiting 2 years to see if another one will sell. At the moment I know of 6 plants in the united states. It was found in the wild but the collectors would not list were it was found it is so rare they did not want someone to poach them. The plant was collected by famous collector and architect Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil. He was not the best with his information on plants or tags for the plants. He apparently collected many philodendrons form a place called Santa leopoldina a small town in brazil. The philodendrons from that area all came back with the same tags saying Santa leopoldina. The many attraction was the long narrow leaves. But all the forms brought back had fairly narrow looking leaves compared to most philos. We believe their were at least 4 forms and as many as 8 forms. But sense then anything with a long leaf has been given this name to increase its value. So for years we knew these plants as species 1, 2, 3, 4 not to mention everyone kept getting them messed up which one was which LOL. One form I call the common species 4 form which recently was given a scientific name called Philodendron atobapoense. The rarest and one I am after has recently been given a proper name called Philodendron spiritus-sancti. This plant is just completely unique it can grow leaves around 3 to 4 ft long and stays very narrow sometimes only a few inches wide. This long narrow back lobes. The one in the picture below was form a past plant auction of the aroid society it went for over 1000.00 to a good friend of mine. The plant is not very fast and seldom gets cut or propagated keeping its value high and only the hard-core collectors of the aroid community grow them. Many of us are waiting in line to get one. I will post more pics of this species and the other forms I grow that were given the same name.