Pothos on steroids.

is the best way I can describe this plant. I am hoping somebody here might know what I have a cutting of. The owner didn't know what it was. It looks like a varigate d pothos with the green and yellow/cream marbling or striping, but the leaves are huge as big as 10 to 12" across. I have never seen anything like it before and hoping maybe somebody has or can kinda point me in the right direction to hunt on line about it. Thanks.

I would say I want some but where would I put something that big. Any chance you could post a picture? I'd love to see it. I suspect it is what you think, which one tho...

Would love to see a photo of this plant.

Down here in Florida there are some monster potho's that are varigated, green/yellow leaves that grow way up in the oak trees! If I can get some info, or photo I will submit it!

I'm new to DG and having a great time, chatting and reading about all those other "plant people" out there!

I wish I could get a picture. The problem is not getting the picture cuz I got a digital camera. The problem is I haven't learned how to download the thing. : ( I have tried several times following the manual but it keeps telling me the run code from the manual won't work.

I'll try and see if I can find somebody over the weekend to get a pic and download and email it to me.

The leaves are so big that the cutting had to be put in a 3 gallon pot. I am hoping that when it roots the new leaves will be just as big.

Podster... I wondering too what I gonna do with it when it gets bigger. With my luck I wil have to probably stake it up with a fence post.

Plantladylin... Glad at least you have seen something like this before. While beautiful it a little scary seeing something that big when your own pothos is so small.

It could very well be pothos (epipremnum). If allowed to grow vertically, the leaves get quite large (adult) whereas at the base of the vine or if allowed to grow horizontally, the leaves remain small (juvenile) which is the form most people buy it as.

Here is a picture from the tropics (Cancun). Not a great picture since it has been severely cropped but you get the idea on horizontal vs. vertical growth patterns.

Starlight, after I posted last night, I got to looking around and found a post on a Hawaiian pothos that had leaves over 15" in size ~ sounds familiar? I can't find that thread this morning, need more coffee.

Sorry I can't help with posting pix, I am not computer literate. My photo program and DG make it easy. But when I change cameras, I am in trouble : ))) pod

While I can't offer any leads on additional info, I, too, have seen this plant. It grows beautifully at Disney's Animal Kingdom, along with every other kind of GORGEOUS tropical you could imagine!

GH

If it is pothos and you root a cutting with big leaves, it will throw out small leaves again (juvenile stage) until it starts climbing vertically (it's usually in trees that you see the big leafed vines with thick stems but it could be a fence, a building, etc.). Just search for it on-line and read all about it. I've seen a bunch of them in the tropics and all the BIG leafed ones are in the tops of trees or a lot higher off the ground. When I lived in Puerto Rico as a kid, my dad planted a pothos in the corner of a small bed. Only when it reached the top of the house and started running across the arbor did the leaves start getting a lot bigger (not giant, but twice the size of normal pothos).

Here is a better example (still not great) of one in Belize. Note the small leaves at ground level (normally bought at the store) and the large leaves further up. The top of the tree had both small and large leaves but the small leafed vines were hanging down, NOT going up.

starlight, my sister used to work in a greenhouse a while back and they had those large pothos there. She said it was regular pothos...just grown in ideal conditions.

I traded with an Aroid-o-holic from Florida a few years ago, and she sent me a cutting of her Pothos (yep..plain old ordinary Pothos) that she had growing.....(guess where, Lin?)....up her oak tree.
The leaves, were, indeed, about 12x18" long....needless to say, it did not keep the large leaves when grown in my home.....I even tried training it up a sort of 'moss pole'...no luck.
It was fun while it lasted!

I've found, though, when I grow my Pothos and Philos outdoors during the hot/humid summers, the leaves are always larger.....the new leaves, after I bring the plants indoors, though.....are smaller:(

In Hawaii the pothos is also incredible to look at. I never would have guessed it was the same plant until I was reading about it here one day. We now own several of these guys, all with supports in their pots so they'll grow up and have the larger leaves.

If you watch LOST on ABC, most of those jungle scenes feature the pothos. They are huge!

http://www.hear.org/starr/hiplants/images/thumbnails/html/epipremnum_pinnatum.htm

Yippee!!!!! Cool!!!!!!!! Thank you everybody. Yep that what I got! Just like in them pictures. At least I won't have to worry about the thing doing a little shop of horrors thing on me during the night. After all what ya have said, I think I will see if I can find a big pot and a stake and try puttign it out under next to my oak tree if they seem to like them so much.

I hope I can get mine to continue to grow them big leaves. They are just so wild to look at. Hummmmmmmm.. I do watch lost, but never really paid to much attention to the foliage. Ya can beat I will now.

Thanks again so much every one for all the information and conversation. If things work out right I want to go out exploring around some woods. Maybe I will find something else unusual. It always fun to see things you have never seen before. It even nicer when others can help ya know what they are. : )

You know this discussion has made me curious about something else regarding pothos. No matter how long the vine, if its near the ground the leaves stay pretty small right? So how exactly does the plant know how high it's grown? I mean, I've seen the leaves get larger up a poll and then as the plant grew down another pole (same stem) the leaves got smaller again. Just seems kinda weird how the plant "figures" that out.

I love the large leaf foliage plants. Here's our largest pothos now; we got it about two weeks ago.

keonikale,

That's been my point all along about size getting huge as it grows vertically.

Why that happens is anyone's guess. It's one of the great mysteries of life. Kinda like the last brood of monarch butterflies (5th or 6th generation in a season from what I heard) that can migrate back to the same place in Mexico for winter. It's almost like a map of where they need to go is passed along to each generation in the genes.

Anyway, it just isn't pothos that gets bigger growing vertically either. Lots of philodendrons do the same thing but not as noticeable as pothos. Here is a picture from Thailand of some philos growing up a banyan tree. The best example I saw was down in Key West of a philodendron deliciosa growing in a tree next to a tree full of pothos. Both had huge leaves at the top of the trees.

Are you sure it's just a 'vertical' thing, though?

I have one that grew larger than normal (though not huge by any means) leaves when outdoors on my deck during the summer, and it was creeping, horizontally, along the soil of a couple of consecutive pots.....I was under the impression that it was the simple fact that the aerial roots had something to attach to...whether it be vertical or horizontal.

Isn't it just that we normally see them growing vertically rather than horizontally, as they would in nature when 'reaching' for the light?

Hmm...one of those 'burning questions', now, LOL!! It's gonna drive me nuts until I find out!
And a good question, keonikale!

It's certainly a mystery, LOL. Here at work my boss has a pothos with a really long vine, like seriously 10-12', but the leaves are all smaller than mine at home that's not even 4' tall. Weird. He also has the pot on the floor and the vine stretched up his bookcase, so it would seem the leaves would grow larger, but they don't.

I have a feeling it's a combination of things... light, humidity, vertical growth, etc. If anyone finds out for sure, I'd love to know.

Love the philo pic hcmcdole. I have grown to big a huge fan of anything philo related. There is one hybrid, called emerald duke I believe that I saw once. It was gigantic (leaves). I saw the same plant elsewhere and it was so tiny; I'd swear they were different at first glance.

I read about the vertical thing at one time either on the web or in a magazine but can't find it now. Search engines show up too much junk since it is such a popular indoor plant. No combination of words improves the results much.

It is probably still in its juvenile stage but enjoying the extra light and fresh air if the leaves are getting bigger (mine do every summer, too, but if I take cuttings of the extra growth - it just reverts to smaller leaves again). Let it run up a tree next summer and see if the leaves don't get bigger compared to a vine running on the ground. Better yet, go to the tropics and observe the growth patterns.


Here are a few sites I did find:

http://www.theeagle.com/homegarden/061104sperry.php

http://hort.ufl.edu/shrubs/EPIAURA.PDF#search=%22epipremnum%20large%20leaf%22

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/72811/Tel9Boy449.pdf#search=%22epipremnum%20growth%20horizontal%20vertical%20juvenile%20mature%22

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/FACULTY/CARR/page9.htm (look at epipremnum pinnatum)

Here is an excellent picture from DG.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/4681/

Hmmm...OK....interesting!
Do clue us in if you should find it in the future....I think it would be really good reading!
Well, at least knowing that you read it somewhere, the durned question won't 'burn' me anymore!

Oh, good, I get to choose whether to let it run up the tree or let *me* go to the tropics....I'll take the latter, thanks (but it's on you, 'k? LOL!!) (Ü)

LOL, field trip!!

I love that last pic here on the site, the one of the pothos climbing the tree. That's exactly how it looks in HI, only x 1000.

When I go to school Monday, I'll stop and ask one of the professors the reason why it does that. Maybe they can giv e us a clue, but like mentioned up above, probably somethign to do with the light and humidity and stuff.