Bucephalandra Apple Leaf

Care at a glance

Overview

This form has small rounded leaves roughly 1.5 cm long, a softer look than the narrow-leaved buces, with a slightly speckled surface that pops under quality LEDs. New leaves come in lighter and darken with age. It is one of the more durable and forgiving buces, happy attached to rock or wood in low to medium light without CO2, provided the rhizome stays uncovered.

In the wild

'Apple Leaf' is a Bucephalandra trade form from Borneo, where the genus grows as an obligate rheophyte on rocks in shaded, fast-moving streams. It spreads over hardscape on a creeping rhizome and stays small, suited to the shaded niches it occupies in the wild.

Good to know

Apple Leaf is an undescribed cultivar named for its leaf shape rather than a formal species, so it keeps its trade name. Bucephalandra is an aroid genus (Araceae) endemic to Borneo, and its members are very small to medium rheophytes that ripen berries inside a persistent, funnel-shaped lower spathe which acts as a splash cup, ejecting seeds onto nearby rock when water droplets strike it.

Did you know

Despite the name, Apple Leaf is not related to apples at all. It is an aroid, a distant cousin of peace lilies and philodendrons, and the 'apple' refers only to its rounded leaf outline.

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