The "IdentDaveinHawaiication" Thread

Hi Randy, this plant is Callisia fragrans, the "Chain Plant" or Fragrant Callisia. A Commelina Family member.

Thanks, never heard of it, and never saw it until someone left it at the plant swap here a couple of years ago. No one else around here has seen it either..I took a couple over to Zone9 and they sold in a second.

I think I have the same plant as the original post ID question. I bought it locally about a month ago with no name. Its is starting to put out arial(sp) roots.......

Heres the lower part.

Happy made a suggestion which was close.

Turns out that the plant may be Philodendron 'Xanadu'. A fairly recent hybrid.

The pictures you get by googling look like it. I have one of these plants, but it isn't doing well.

This is my "Xanadu", does look very much like the one in the original post and the last two photos in the thread. The only thing not apparent in the photos is the scale of size. Xanadu is basically a dwarf philodendron, actually a dwarf Philodendron selloum I think.

Thanks, Dave.

That's grown a lot around here. My city, about 6 months ago, put them all along one corridor, in full sun, in our coral-rock soil, with very limited if any water. Well, you can guess what they look like now! Only about 20% of the plants have lived and the rest are about ready to die. Such a waste. AND the place looks terrible. They would have been so beautiful if only they had been taken care of.

Hap

TB,

The one's in my neighbor's yard, which are beautiful, are about 26" high and full.

Hap

This plant has an interesting history:

It was originally reported as a chance seedling in 1983 by a Western Australian nursery as a dwarf of Philodendron selloum, and dubbed with the name Philodendron 'Winterbourn'.
It was renamed in 1988 as Philodendron 'Xanadu' by House Plants of Australia, and released as their "Plant of the Year". It was given the US Plant Patent PP7-030.

Since then it has been established that the plant was grown from seed collected from a wild plant which was collected from Brazil.
In 2003, the International Aroid Society published it's official name as:

Philodendron xanadu Croat, Mayo, & J. Boos.

So then, the plant is no longer a patented cultivar.

Philodendron xanadu is a natural species from Brazil!

I'll have to check next time I'm in a nursery, but I think last time I looked it was still being sold as a patented plant. They might be trying to pull a swifty.

Dave, what is this plant? Is it a Rhaphidophora?

Thank's much

Rachel

One more.

Looks like an Epipremnum to me rather than a Rhaphidophora.

Hi Tropicbreeze, can you please tell me why you think so? There are so many of these "type" of plant's floating around in our part of the world that look similiar but most of the time are incorrectly tagged.

Can you supply a pic of what a Rhaphidophora, look's like and how it grow's for me? It would be appreciated.

Thank you

Rachel

This message was edited Jun 5, 2009 10:40 PM

It looks a bit like one I've got which was identified as an Epipremnum. And I've been told they hold their leaves up that way. But I understand your confusion with all these aroids, I have the same feeling about many of them - I might be right, unless I'm wrong. I bought an Anthurium which came (indirectly) from an Anthurium specialist. Turned out it was an Amydrium. Label probably fell off and a wrong one put back. Also, apparently here it's illegal to import Colocasia. So they change the labels to Alocasia which are legal imports. The label stays and the plants are sold on as Alocasia. Gets back to the old saying, don't believe all you read.

So I won't give an iron clad guarantee it's an Epipremnum, but to my (often confused) mind it looks like one.

Guess we are "kind of in" the same way of dealing with all......just in different part's of the world;-)

BTW, red clay is torture here and thank's for adding the extra tip's that I did not know about or forgot.

I have to add , I hold a passion for Aroid's as a whole.

Rachel

I'm not completely sure, but I think Rachel's plant might be the juvenile form of Monstera obliqua var. expilata, the "Window Leaf" plant.

Well okay, that's made swiss cheese out of my theory :O(

Thank's Dave. The plant you state come's the closest to a match.

Rachel

By the way, I checked out a place where they were selling "Xanadu". All the plants had a notice about them being protected by patent laws and that reproducing them for commercial purposes was illegal. I guess no one checks back.

I wonder if the US Patent Office ever revoked the patent?

There are patents in Australia and New Zealand for it as well. Patents offices aren't scientific centres and they register what fits their criteria. They wouldn't follow up scientific publications, someone would have to challenge the patent registration which probably no one has bothered to do.