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Species library › Monstera › Monstera acuminata
Aroids Well documented

Monstera acuminata

Shingle plant

Monstera acuminata is a Central American climbing aroid best known for its juvenile shingling stage: thick, waxy, heart-shaped leaves pressed flat against a trunk in two overlapping ranks. It starts on the ground as a creeping herb, climbs the first tree it meets, and becomes a hemiepiphyte with larger, often split adult leaves. It grows mostly in warm, humid lowland evergreen forest and is the northernmost Monstera.

Monstera acuminata
Photo: Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 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 periodClimber

Where it grows wild

Specimen labels place it in tall evergreen rainforest (selva alta perennifolia), riparian semi-evergreen forest, lowland moist forest on granite, around cenotes on the Yucatán Peninsula, and occasionally in cloud forest. Seedlings creep along the forest floor, then climb tree trunks, fig trees and tree ferns, and older plants lose their connection to the soil.

Mostly lowland: 416 specimens with elevation range from sea level to about 2480 m, but the median is 300 m and three quarters are below about 630 m.

MexicoBelizeGuatemalaHonduras

🔒 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 4.0 licence, unmodified.