Origin of Tropical Plants
The majority of tropical foliage plants that live indoors are indigenous to the rainforests of the world. Rainforests are characterized by tropical temperatures (60-100 degrees), high humidity, and dense layers of foliage from giant trees to low growing “under story” plants. Most plants used indoors hail from the Americas and Asia, with some cactus and succulents from Africa and unusual species from Australia.
Since indoor offices have such low light (usually 30-150 footcandles in artificial light and 300-1000 footcandles in atriums), the only plants that can survive are ones that are also “low light” plants in nature. In the rainforest, large trees grow to the top of the foliage(called the canopy) and cover most of the natural light. Medium high plants receive diffused light in the middle story of the forest. The under story received very little light, so plants that can live in this climate have evolved to survive with little light. These are the low light plants found living indoors.
In the 1960 and 70’s, horticulturists in Florida and California began experimenting to grow plants to live in even lower light conditions. Plants were grown in these climates that had the temperature and often the humidity of the tropics, but much more light. For example, the light on a sunny South Florida day can be over 10,000 footcandles!
Eventually nurseries created the standard of growing plants under shade cloth that filters out 40-90% of the natural light. When plants are grown in shade conditions, the leaves actually had chlorophyll arranged differently to more efficiently photosynthesize in lower light. This is one of the reasons that plants lose their “sun” leaves when brought indoors. Almost all plants are grown from baby to finished size under shade. Giant trees and palms are the exception; they are grown to full height in full sun and then “finished” under shade for 6-12 months.
Another technique to allow for these plants to survive indoors was acclimation, basically this is adapting plants to different environments in stages. This in one of the reasons that we like to “stage” plants from Florida in our warehouse for 2-6 weeks before installation at a client. See the next page for more information about how plants acclimate to new environments.
Tropical Foliage Plants
Although there are hundreds of thousands of plant species in the world, tropical indoor plants tend to be available in about one hundred species (but with many varieties, such as hundreds of Hedera helix ivy).
Plants are grouped by families (such as Cactus, Orchid, Aralia, Palm, etc.) Each plant type, such as a kind of Fig Tree would be identified by the Genus species and then possibly a variety or cultivar name. For example, Ficus benjamina “Wintergreen” is a new variety of Ficus that lives well in lower light, from the Moraceae family that includes fruit bearing fig trees.
Another example is the Aroid family that includes Philodendron, Aglaonema, and Spathiphyllum. These Genus have dozens of cultivars under production and they change rapidly… Aglaonemas we sold 5 years ago are no longer available but 10 new varieties are.
Sometimes these cultivars are actually patented and/ or trademarked, and can not be be legally reproduced (you have to buy seeds or seedlings from the “manufacturer.”)