Monstera tuberculata
A Central American hemiepiphytic Monstera that starts as a 'shingle' plant, with juvenile leaves pressed flat against a tree trunk. It climbs into the canopy, where it produces large oval, unfenestrated leaves and unusual pendant fruit. It comes from hot, wet lowland forest from southern Mexico to Panama. In cultivation it needs warmth, humidity and a wide, flat surface to climb.
Where it grows wild
It is a root-climbing hemiepiphyte of lowland evergreen rain forest ('selva alta perennifolia'), including Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, Caribbean-slope forests in Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and remnant forest and secondary growth. Juveniles shingle up shaded trunks near the ground. Adults climb higher into brighter light.
Most records are from near sea level to about 600 m, with a median of about 100 m, and some reach about 1,000–1,150 m in Chiapas. A few labels at about 1,870–2,400 m are probably errors or unusual outliers.
🔒 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 2.5 licence, unmodified.