Last week, I stopped by my local Trader Joe’s to do some weekly grocery-shopping and was confronted with two surprises; the first, a chaotic whirl of people panic-shopping in response to COVID-19; the second, a much more pleasant surprise, in the form of what looked like a display of potted Rhaphidophora tetrasperma, located before the checkout lines.
Being a staunch introvert who strongly prefers having a personal bubble of at least 6 feet from strangers (social-distancing year-round, anyone?), I was definitely put-off and unprepared for the mass of people sweeping through the store, and row after row of barren shelves and freezers. The egg section was completely bare, and the Greek yogurt that I normally bought was gone. Not wanting to waste a trip, I settled for a tub of regular yogurt and scoured the mostly-empty shelves for my usual staples and snacks, most of which were gone too. Clearly I was late to the party.
As I headed to the registers, intent on escaping the madness ASAP, a group of potted plants stopped me in my tracks.
What?
Could it be?
No way…
Aren’t those Rhaphidophora tetraspermas?
I’m quite certain that I looked the oddball, standing in the middle of Trader Joe’s gawking over the Rhaphidophoras while everyone scurried around me, desperately trying to snag the last boxes of snack bars and bags of chips. After all, who would spend time ogling a bunch of plants that were clearly inedible during an oncoming pandemic?
Me, that’s who.
And how could I not? Not only are Rhaphidophora tetraspermas still relatively rare in cultivation, these plants were lush and gorgeous. But, their overall appearance was still kind of odd…
Thinking about my own Rhaphidophora tetrasperma at home, there were several characteristics of these plants that struck me as slightly strange: Why were the leaves fenestrated at such a small size? Why were the leaves so small anyway? Why were they so much narrower and elongated than mine? Is this a new species or subspecies that I wasn’t aware of? WHY WERE THE LEAVES SO SMALL???
Unfortunately, there were no signs indicating what exactly they were and what the price was. Underneath the metal pot, was this:
Really? A Monstera? Now I’m confused. I do know that the Monstera genus contains almost 50 species of plants, many with cool, fenestrated leaves (check out Monstera epiprimnoides or Monstera obliqua), but what are the chances that Trader Joe’s is selling a variety that I’ve never seen before? Not likely.
I dug into the leaves to pull the tag and found it similarly unhelpful:
Ummm, OK… thanks… I guess.
Well, even if I didn’t know exactly what it was for sure, I was still going home with one anyway! I may not have been able to get my favorite Greek yogurt, but a new plant will more than make up for that!
Upon checkout, I took a peek at my receipt and saw that my newfound plant-friend was this:
Monstera deliciosa? What?
No.
And not only no, HECK NO. Not even juvenile Monstera deliciosas look like that! I’m not sure if you can tell from the photos, but the stems of these plants are pretty chunky, so clearly these plants came from a pretty well-established mother plant. And clearly the growth habit is that of a climber. Juvenile Monsteras don’t tend to climb that readily, their leaf petioles are much longer and they most certainly don’t have fenestrated leaves at a young age.
At this stage, I’m quite certain these plants are Rhaphidophora tetraspermas, despite the frustratingly-incorrect name on the receipt.
But the price was awesome. $9.99 plus tax. SCORE!
Most important lesson from this post: Always be on the lookout for cool and unusual plants wherever you go! You’ll never know where they might turn up when you least expect it!
So what do you all think? Do you agree that it’s a Rhaphidophora tetrasperma, or is it something different? Let me know in the comments!
Always Keep Growing,
Heather (a.k.a. The Botanical Chick)
How is yours doing? We also bought one of these from TJ’s and it’s not doing well. The soil was soaked and we repotted and didn’t water but it started yellowing and then we found some root rot. So we removed all the rot and the wet soil and fixed it back up in it’s pot. Then it started yellowing again. The soil was dry, so we watered it. The yellowing got worse. We don’t know what to do to save it besides cut it up and propagate.
Hi Julia! Mine seems to be doing fine so far. I did get some yellowing and dropping leaves at first, but I think it was because the light was too low where I had it. How is your light? It may need a brighter location and better airflow. I actually ended up moving mine outside under dappled shade of a tree (I live in So Cal, so the outdoor temps are fine right now). I don’t get enough light indoors during the summer (the sun is too high in the sky unlike in the winter, when the sun is lower) so most of my plants have to go outside. Try upping your plant’s light exposure. If the yellowing and rotting accelerates, you may want to play it safe and cut off the healthy bits for propagation. Let me know how it goes!