Morticia

Anthurium - Black

Anthurium ‘black love'’; Tail flower; Flamingo flower; Laceleaf; Anthurium Andraeanum

• Morticia likes...
  • 
    Light watering

    She likes her soil lightly moist, but never soggy. Water her when the top two inches of soil are dry.

  • 
    Medium light

    She needs a good amount of light to thrive. She’ll love a bright room, but prefers to be away from direct sun.

  • 
    Humidity

    A moist environment is great for her. A bathroom is ideal, but misting her often will be just as good.

• Quick facts

  Botanical name

  Anthurium andraeanum

  Nickname

  Tail flower; Flamingo flower; Laceleaf

  Plant type

  Arum, indoor

  Plant height (including pot)

  40-50cm

  Pet/baby safe

  Sap is toxic to skin and harmful if ingested

  Nursery pot size

  12cm

• About Anthurium

  Generally found in the wild across the warmest parts of South America and the Caribbean, the anthurium is one of the most striking houseplants. The vivid red part is not actually its flower, but a spathe. We won’t overdo the science bit, but essentially a spathe is a brightly-coloured leaf that attracts insects. The flowers are tiny little things on the spike in the middle of the spathe.

  A useful way to think about how to care for your plant is to consider where it comes from. Anthurium adreanum lives in rainforests, either in the branches of larger trees or on the ground beneath them. That means it’s used to getting dappled light, rather than direct sun, and regularly getting soaked by rainfall.

  In a home, that means giving it indirect light and making sure its soil is kept lightly moist. You'll help it grow, and encourage flowers, by feeding it with liquid fertiliser once per month in spring and summer.

  Did you know?

  There are over 1,000 different varieties of anthurium. No, we can’t name them all.