Hi, I hope someone can help me ID my unknown plant! Once ID'd I hope to find some good tips on the proper care... I received this plant as a gift and have no idea what it is...its leaves are green, with almost teardrop shaped leaves, very similar to a pothos; but it has pink margins in spots with white striping (which sperates the pink areas from the green). You will notice from the photo that the leaves are predominately green, yet still variegated! The mature, larger leaves are covering the smaller leaves and preventing them from reachong full size... My guess would be they are starved from good light, and they're stretching a bit in an attempt to get more. Some of the leaves are warping... there doesn't seem any pest issues at the moment. However, once I know what plant this is I will be able to care better for it! Can anybody help? Thanks! =) Here is a link that might be useful:

Calathea louisea has a very similar leaf pattern, but not the velvety look that C. war. has. In addition, the inflor. of C. louisea is much smaller and less colorful etc. C. louisea is very hardy, been growing it in zone 8 for many many years. C. war. is probably not hardy at all, though I've never tested it. Years ago Helen had told me that the plants labeled as C. louisea are really C. albertii, but I've never seen it corrected anywhere and I should really double check on this. C. louisea and C. war. haven't been mixed up in the trade as far as I know. The Renealmia have no cold hardiness from my experience. Still, south floridians and others should be growing these. The basal blooming R. occidentalis is very impressive!! Are you growing the terminal blooming species as well? (R. jamaicensis I think it was). It has a smaller inflor but really cool none the less. Tim Chapman

Hey, check this out (from Wikipedia)! I've always just thought of them as not-likely-to-be-dangerous garden spiders. They can be found most everywhere at times including in my goldenrod: "Misumena vatia is a species of crab spider with holarctic distribution. In North America, where it the largest and most well-known flower spider, it is called the Goldenrod crab spider, because it is commonly found hunting in Goldenrod sprays in the autumn. Females can grow up to 10mm (without legs), males reach 5mm at most. Young females in the early summer may be quite small and easily overlooked. These spiders may be yellow or white, depending on the flower in which they are hunting. Especially younger females, which may hunt on a variety of flowers such as daisies and sunflowers, may change color "at will" (aggressive mimicry). Older females require large amounts of relatively large prey to produce the best possible clutch of eggs. They are, therefore, in North America most commonly found in Goldenrod (Solidago sp.), a bright yellow flower which attracts large numbers of insects, especially in autumn. It is often very hard even for a searching human to recognize one of these spiders on a yellow flower."

Thanks for the kind words! It really was how you describe it-fantastic. There was nothing bad there like you say. In fact, there were no bugs!!!!!!!! No misquitos!!! Even at the Cano Negro swanp of all places, there was not one single misquito!!! The temps varied from the mid 60's to the mid 80's, but the majority of the time it was in the mid to high 70's. Of course this is farenheight (sry my knowledge of celcius is terrible). It didn't rain once when I was there (they have a 2 month dry season-the rest of the time it is soaking wet). Of course, if you look hard, you can find the centipedes and spiders. I saw one centipede in the forest at Monteverde and it basically just sat there and did nothing. The only spider I saw was a small tarantula, but that was also in the forest and our tour guide had to fish it out of a deep hole for us to even catch a glimpse of it. The hotels (I stayed in 4) were not the "jungle shacks" I thought they would be. They were very clean, had air conditioning, locks, safes, purified water (although I still drank bottled water to be on the safe side), and maid service. I would imagine it is relatively easy to end up in a "jungle shack" by accident, as there were quote a few there, so you want to do research before you go. I used American Express travel service. Let me know if I can tell you anything else!