The vast variety of tropical works available to gardeners allows them to pick and prefer species with specific ornamental characteristics beyond flower colour . Plants with broad leafage blade impart coarse and bold texture to landscape painting designs , and provide leaf to use in floral arrangements . In worldwide , tropic foliage plants require ample humidity and soil wet to maintain theirleaves without dry or browned edges .

White Bird of Paradise

strike with vast , waxy leaveson long juicy stem petiole , the white bird of paradise ( Strelitzia nicolai ) indeed produces a flower of white and purple . turn outdoors where no winter frosts occur , and as a declamatory houseplant elsewhere , healthy plants produce leaves that are 5 to 6 feet foresightful , and 18 - in wide .

Traveler’s Tree

bear on to boo of paradise and sometimes misleadingly called the traveler ’s palm , traveler ’s tree diagram ( Ravenala madagascariensis ) form a one - planed devotee of leaves that each go up 10- to 12 - foot in length and 24 - inch in width . out of doors in frost - free landscapes these monumental leafage blades tatter in the current of air .

Banana

If you have it off fast - growing plants with large leave , you’re able to not avoid talk over banana . Called " trees " , banana lack any forest in their trunks and thus are merely large tropic herbs . Edible banana tree ( Musa spp . ) range in their cold boldness , so gardeners outside the Torrid Zone uprise various varieties for summertime foliage emphasis that conk out - back to their tooth root and pull round over the cold winter . The Abyssinian banana ( Ensete ventricosum ) grows large , wide of the mark folio blade , too , some contact lengths of 20 metrical unit and closely 30 inch in width .

Elephant Ears

" Elephant ears " ambiguously comprises any tropic works in the aroid kin with large , queer leaf blades resembling the pachypod ’s spike lobes . Botanically , the across-the-board farewell develop in the plant life group Alocasia and Xanthosoma . jumbo dasheen ( Alocasia macrorrhizos ) blade are rounded but reasonably triangular , have on squiffy stems . Each measure 2 to 5 feet tenacious and about 3 foot in width . Other species producing grand parting admit Alocasia portei , Alocasia plumbea , Xanthosoma maffafa and Xanthosoma aurea .

Philodendron

Two species of philodendron mould prominent , ornate leaves are the Swiss cheeseflower industrial plant ( Monstera deliciosa ) and the selloum ( Philodendron bipinnatifidum ) . Arrowhed philodendron ( Philodendron speciosum ) also creates heavy shining leave with widths greater than 12 column inch .

Voodoo Lily

Developing large , phallic - shaped peak that smell of rotting flesh , voodoo lily or elephantine arum species grow large leaves . Many leaf blades expose deep lobe and cuts , resembling leaf umbrella with monolithic hole and tears . The 3- to 5 - foot leave seem in the growing time of year , not when the plant blooms .

Trumpet Tree

Large , rounded leaves with lobe occur on trumpet trees ( Cecropia spp . ) . Looking like multi - fingered hands , their diam rate between 18 and 24 inches . foliage undersides persist silvery gray to white while upper surfaces are unassumingly green . These tall , fast - growing trees produce in truly tropical region , often the first to re - vegetate the rainforest when it is cleared .

References

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