The aroids have my heart… pothos isn’t truly a pothos, anyway, and monstera deliciosa never was to begin with… nevertheless, whether it is a common Global Jade Pothos or a Thai Constellation Monstera or a swirling Heartleaf Philodendron… in my mind (and the minds of many others) these plants belong in a category together, and they are all more related than not… after all, they are all aroids.
Like the name suggests, “aroids” grow best in “air”; or, more specifically, they grow best in a medium that gives their roots ample room to breathe. A chunky, soil-less mixture of micorrhizae, coconut coir fiber, and large stones of perlite or clay leca balls helps these plants to recreate their natural tendency to “climb”, as they make trees their vertical substrate in the wild. The plants have two distinct stages: during the first, immature stage, the plants are recognizable to us as the internationally popular houseplants we know and love, growing heartily in all directions in search of support. The plant can exist in this stage indefinitely. If a vertical support is found, however, the plant will begin to climb, and subsequently enter a mature stage where it will dramatically change in appearance, and in very rare occasions it will even flower.
Pothos was categorized as “pothos” long before these botanists had ever seen the plant in its mature stage. It was later reclassified as Epipremnum Areum, and is not even in the Pothos family! However, if I show my “pothos” on the internet, people will quickly jump into the comments to say, “WELL, ACTUALLY… THAT ONE IS A PHILODENDRON.”
And to all these taxonomic fascists I would like to say:
You are RIGHT. It ISN’T a pothos… techinically. But also, technically… none of these are!
Words are symbols we use to communicate. Saying “I like Pothos” is still the easiest way to communicate to another plant lover what types of plants I like! We users of language are the ones who agree on accepted meaning. I’m going to stick to calling them all “pothos”, and move on.
Why do I like Pothos so much?? The way that it grows. Its vibrancy. The ability to adapt to so many different indoor spaces, unfussy, simple to grow. The ease with which it propagates. It rarely flowers, as it lost the need to, from an evolutionary standpoint. The plant propagates itself so easily, with an excessive growth hormone released in its juvenile stage that causes it to explore and search in all directions. I have only recently begun to grow them climbing on moss poles (post update on those to come) and it is fascinating to watch their progress: each new leaf on a climbing node is bigger, brighter, more splendid than any pothos leaf I have seen yet.
