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Species library › Philodendron › Philodendron bipennifolium
Aroids Well documented

Philodendron bipennifolium

Fiddle-leaf philodendron

A climbing philodendron from Brazil, Venezuela and the Guianas whose adult leaves are five-lobed and shaped like a violin or horse head. Juveniles start on the forest floor and climb tree trunks as hemiepiphytes in humid lowland forest, often near streams. Warm, humid, and happy in bright shade, it grows easily if it has something to climb.

Philodendron bipennifolium
Photo: Joan Simon from Barcelona, España, CC BY-SA 2.0, 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 Dappled lightDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodClimber

Where it grows wild

A hemiepiphytic liana. Specimen labels from Atlantic Forest fragments in Pernambuco record it in closed or semi-open, highly humid understory near streams, with juveniles rooting in the ground and larger plants climbing trunks. Other records come from secondary forest by roadsides and the edge of rock savanna on inselbergs in French Guiana, and humid forest in Ceará and Espírito Santo.

Measured wild records span 50-807 m, median 100 m; it is mainly a lowland species.

Brazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastSurinameVenezuela

🔒 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 2.0 licence, unmodified.