Species library › Goeppertia › Goeppertia rufibarba
Other Partly documented

Goeppertia rufibarba

Furry feather

Goeppertia rufibarba (long sold as Calathea rufibarba, the furry feather or velvet calathea) is a clumping prayer-plant from the humid Atlantic Forest of southern Bahia, Brazil. It has narrow, wavy leaves with a velvety, rust-haired underside. In the wild it grows on the shaded, moist forest floor, including under cacao grown in forest shade. It wants warmth, steady moisture, soft water and no direct sun.

Goeppertia rufibarba
Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, 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

It is a terrestrial herb of the moist Atlantic Forest (mata higrófila) of southern Bahia. Herbarium labels record it in forest at Serra da Jiboia, Serra do Teimoso, Jussari, Santa Terezinha and Camamu, and in the 'cabruca' system around Una, where cacao is grown under thinned native forest. That makes it a plant of the shaded forest floor, in deep, humus-rich, moist soil.

Mostly lowland to submontane forest, from near sea level to about 600 m (one Jussari specimen is labelled 600 m).

Brazil Northeast

🔒 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 4.0 licence, unmodified.