Calathea crotalifera
Calathea crotalifera is a giant Marantaceae, 2–4 m tall, found from southern Mexico to Bolivia. Its large, pointed leaves grow on long petioles, and its rattle-shaped inflorescences of yellow to red bracts carry small flowers. It grows in wet forest gaps, edges and disturbed secondary forest, so it takes brighter light and more space than the familiar small prayer plants.
Where it grows wild
It is a large clump-forming herb of wet lowland and premontane forest, often in gaps, along streams and roads, and in secondary forest. Specimens from Brazil record it at 3 m tall with petioles to 1.09 m and leaves to 2.3 m. In Hawaii it has naturalised in disturbed forest.
Recorded elevations run 27–1,640 m, with a median of 1,128 m (21 records). Mexican specimens reach about 1,780 m, but most records come from Costa Rica's Caribbean and northern lowlands and foothills.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
Grow Calathea crotalifera? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.
More Calathea
Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY 3.0 licence, unmodified.