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Species library › Dracaena › Dracaena cantleyi
Other Partly documented

Dracaena cantleyi

A shrub or small tree, 1-5 m tall, from the wet lowland rainforests of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. Its purplish-green leaves are mottled with lighter green (it was formerly called Dracaena marmorata). It is known for orangutans using its chewed leaves as a topical anti-inflammatory. At home it is a warm, humid, shade-tolerant foliage plant with no rest season.

Dracaena cantleyi
Photo: Mokkie, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day Warm-growingTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Ordinary room humidityBand in Plantistry
Light ShadeDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodGrows in the ground

Where it grows wild

An understorey shrub of wet tropical lowland forest. Observations come from forest and riparian areas, the Central Catchment forest in Singapore and peat-swamp country in Riau.

Records carry almost no elevations. The localities (Singapore, Johor, Selangor, Pahang, Riau, Ko Lanta) are lowland, mostly below a few hundred metres.

MalayaBorneoSumateraSingaporeThailand

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

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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-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.