This plant is from Belize.
I contacted the lead botanist from the area, and although she had seen EE in Belize they are not officially registered in the plant listings for the country.
Any idea which one?
X. sagittifolia? I have one from Rare Plants, but the vein pattern on the leaf look slightly different.
Edit: I mean the arrow head shaped leaf plant in the foreground.
ROX
This message was edited Aug 25, 2006 6:15 PM
Just guessing here, but it reminds me of my X Lime Zinger
PS, love the one in the background too. Is that Hilo Beauty? (on my much wanted list).
ID well it looks to be Xanthosoma Sagittifolia and your other one looks to be lime zinger. The way to tell a Xanthosoma is easy once you know what to look for.
All xanthosomas have white sap in the leaves
All Xanthosomas have a vein that runs around the edge of the leaf like a out line of the leaf.
Most if not all have a split for the back lobes that runs to the stem. Meaning a colocasia will usually have a heart shaped leaf and a xanthosoma will have pointer lobes that run all the way to the stem. If you look at a xanthosoma leaf head on and pull the lobes apart you should be able to see the stem. You cannot do this with colocasia caladiums and most alocasias.
Preverted picture time! Here is a picture of me standing behind a huge Xanthosoma sagittifolia leaf. You can see my thumb AND Yes that is my thumb LOL. This is away to ID xanthosomas the leaves attach back at the stem.
Brian-
Thanks for the ID.
That leave is huge. Absolutely huge!
What is the largest recorded leaf for a Xanth?
Linda-
Yes it is Hilo Beauty.
I like that one plant because it has splashes of white (the leaf that is partially hidden on the right), in addition to the usual beige "dots".
ROX
The famous aroid Botanist Dr Croat had photos of himself under a huge xanthosoma a few years back. He was unable to name it but it was a monster of a plant and could rival the other known giants like alocasia robusta and Borneo giant. I would say it had 8 to 9 foot long leaves around 5 to7 foot wide. It was not a normal species it had many ripples in the leaves and was growing down in a valley in south america so it had the heat the shelter and aparently plenty of food. I asked him why in the world he did not bring some plants back he said each trunk was larger than his leg and he did not have a chain saw handy. His picture was by far the largest I have seen. Many people are looking for the worlds largest solid leaf plant and I am sure it's a aroid that will hold the record but which one its hard to say. Plants of this size may never get over 2 feet tall here in my greenhouse and in the jungle you could live under them. The few I can think of off hand with the largest known leaves are.
This xanthosoma with no name croat had
Alocasia robusta
Alocasia borneo giant
Cyrtosperma merkusii
Alocasia odora
Colocasia gigantea
Xanthosoma robustum
