One of the best-loved tropical houseplants: Monstera adansonii 'Monkey leaf', a cultivar of Monstera adansonii Schott. It is a scandent epiphyte. When juvenile it grows as terrestrial creeper, stem smooth, green, terete, petiole vaginate for the lamina widely ovate to narrowly elliptic, entire or perforated at a very early stage when only 5 – 10 cm long. Adult stem: subterete, green, smooth. Petiole: smooth, 20 – 60 cm long, somewhat shorter than the lamina, vaginate to the geniculum, the wings of the sheath deciduous or persistent. Lamina: sub coriaceous, glossy adaxially, very widely ovate to elliptic, 25 – 70 cm long, 15 – 45 cm wide, the base cuneate to broadly truncate, sometimes oblique and unequal, being cuneate on one side and truncate to subcordate on the other side, the tip acute or shortly mucronate; margin entire, rarely irregularly laciniate, perforations absent to numerous in several series on each side of the midrib; primary lateral veins parallel, 8 – 16 in number, secondary lateral veins parallel to the primaries.
The genus name Monstera ( modern Latin), comes perhaps form Latin monstrum ‘monster’ (because of the unusual appearance of the leaves in some species). (uncertain)
Monstera adansonii 'Monkey leaf'
Monstera adansonii 'Monkey leaf' comes in following sizes:
baby (XS) - is ca. 12 cm tall, and comes in a ⌀ 6 cm pot.
S - is ca. 30 cm tall, and comes in a ⌀ 12 cm pot.
M - is ca. 40 cm tall, and comes in a ⌀ 15 cm hanging pot.
L - is ca. 75 cm tall, and comes in a ⌀ 16 cm pot with a moss pole.
XXL - is ca. 160 cm tall, and comes in a ⌀ 27 cm pot with a moss pole.
