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Indoor delight
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With thick waxy leaves of varied sizes and a consistent dark green hue, let the exquisite `Epipremnum pinnatum' accentuate the beauty of your drawing room.
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TREE SUPPORT: Taro Vine has the trunk in its green gamut.
POTTED PLANTS, when kept, inside a room accentuate the beauty of the room manifold. However, a lot depends on the choice of plants. Not all potted plants will give an endearing feel to the room. The Epipremnum pinnatum, a vigorous epiphytic tropical climber, seems just right to be kept inside a medium-sized room, be it drawing or dining.
Originally from Malaya, Java and neighbouring countries, Taro Vine, as it is indigenously called, climbs trees and very soon has the entire stem in its green gamut.
The large oblong leaves without the petiole measures up to 50 centimetres in length. Juvenile leaves are small, ovate and oblique. The waxy nature of the leaves protects them.
The plant sticks to the host with the help of small roots. Larger roots are produced from the lower part of the stem with which the plant keeps contact with the soil.
MOSS STICK: The plant flourishes indoors too.
Like the money plant Scindansus aureus, Taro Vine also produces larger leaves when vertically growing on a tree. Having been used to living in the dark jungles the plant can grow in poorly lighted situations too.
Epipremnum pinnatum can be profitably employed as an indoor plant by training it on a moss or coir rope covered polythene pipe in a manured pot.
To grow it inside, first select some good pieces of the plant growing on a tree. Cut a piece with a few leaves and tie it on a pipe with thread. The plant should be fixed in such a way that the lower part of the stem and large roots if any go inside the manure in the pot.
In the initial stages, the plant thus prepared should be kept in shade and when it establishes itself and shows signs of growth it should be brought inside the house or kept under a shady tree.
The plant will develop a number of new shoots. Most of the new shoots will have smaller leaves but there will be several bigger leaves with segmentations. A fully developed plant with different sizes and shapes of leaves presents indeed a delightful appearance.
It should be watered profusely and like any other indoor plant juggled between inside the house and a shady place under a tree, once in three days.
By washing the leaves with fresh water to which a few drops of cow's milk has been added we can clean the leaves thoroughly which will bring out the beauty of the dark green waxy leaves.
CHITRA RADHAKRISHNAN
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