The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Maranta leuconeura
Also called Ten Commandments
In Singapore: Herringbone Plant, Red-Veined Prayer Plant, Rabbit's Foot, Prayer Plant (Grown in Singapore)
Prayer plant is a small, low-growing houseplant from Brazilian rainforests, known for leaves that fold upward at night. It needs bright indirect light, humidity and evenly moist, well-drained soil.
Maranta leuconeura, widely known as the prayer plant due to its daily sunlight-dependent movements (which are said to resemble hands "in-prayer"), is a species of flowering plant in the family Marantaceae native to the Brazilian tropical forests. It is a variable, rhizomatous perennial, growing to 30 cm (12 in) tall and broad, with crowded clumps of evergreen, strikingly-marked oval leaves, each up to 12 cm (5 in) long. The plant spreads itself horizontally, carpeting an entire small area of forest floor, sending roots into the substrate at each leaf node.
Maranta, in-addition to fellow "prayer-plant" genera (like Calathea, Ctenanthe, Goeppertia and Stromanthe), is related to such groups as Alpinia, Ensete, Canna, Curcuma, Heliconia, Musa and Zingiber.
Maranta leuconeura is a well-known houseplant in temperate regions, requiring a minimum temperature of 15 °C (59 °F). As a plant that is native to rainforests, Maranta prefers bright indirect sunlight, high humidity, and well-drained soil that has a high humus content. Acidic, clay or loam soils are tolerable.
Direct sunlight should be avoided, as well as standing water. At daytime the ideal temperature is 21–27 °C and at night 16–21 °C; the night temperature should not be lower than 15 °C. Higher temperatures also require higher humidity, for example, just spraying. Due to the thin leaves of this species and their need for high humidity, prolonged dry and arid conditions as well as excessive sunlight can damage the plants.
Rosmarinic acid can be found in plants in the family Marantaceae such as Maranta leuconeura.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Maranta leuconeura by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
