Maranta leuconeura
A low, spreading Marantaceae herb from the forests of central and eastern Brazil. It grows in shaded understory, forest edges and clearings in both humid and seasonal forest, and folds its leaves upright at night. It is more tolerant than most calatheas: it likes warmth and humidity but copes with the cooler, drier winter its native sites get.
Where it grows wild
Terrestrial herb of shaded forest floors, forest margins and clearings. Brazilian Maranta species occupy understory, gaps, riparian strips and edges of fragments in dense and seasonal forest, and M. leuconeura fits this pattern. Species-specific field notes are scarce.
Wild records range from near sea level to about 1170 m, median about 600 m (150 records with elevation). The negative minimum elevation is a coordinate or elevation error.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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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.