Alocasia Sinuata

popular subject in horticulture, Alocasia sinuata is a small-growing Philippine endemic with bullate, thickly coriaceous, shiny leaves. The plants start out green then mature into a deeper green with almost metallic gray patina and with dark green sunken veins, resulting in a memorable foliage display of pure bliss. The species was described by Nicholas Edward Brown in 1885 from a cultivated specimen from Kew which was given by William Bull. The original collector of this plant is unknown. In the type sheet, Brown noted that it was collected in the ‘Malay Archipelago’ which Brown himself corrected to ‘Philippines’.

That is notable in the type specimen is the very deep sinus with rather distant posterior lobes. However, as noted by George Yao, an ardent student of Araceae in the Philippines, posterior lobing and sinus depth is variable in Alocasia anyway. Alocasia sinuata was so-named for the sinuate (wavy) margins, but as the holotype and many cultivated plants show, the waviness of the blade margins are poorly expressed.

Watering:
Overwatering is the main reason why this plant dies – do be very concern about this matter.

Feeding:
I find this is the most important factor – without proper feeding this plant will slowly will loose it leaves – one in a week and eventually goes dormant. It does however have a corm (bulb) that is very important to consider not to overwater it to cause it to go rotting inside the soil. Thus – proper care is required that it won’t go dormant and totally lost.