Foraging Ecology of Monsteras and Philos?

From: a san juan <kalim1998 at yahoo.com> on 2004.06.18 at 05:19:58(11634) Some aroids like Monsteras and Philodendrons can quickly cross inimical areas (e.g. very low light) by forming long-stemmed, tiny-leaved very fast growing shoots that "scan" the environment for a better location, and only unfurl very large leaves when in favorable locations. +More (1) What is the growth rate of such shoots? (2) is the aroid capable of elongating such shoots indefinitely, or do they stop its growth after a certain distance (much like anchor roots stop after not encountering any support)? (3) Which species (monstera/philodendron) seem to be able to grow fastest in general? (4) Some philos and monsteras "lose" their older stem portions (through various reasons, inc disease), although they may retain very long feeder roots that still connect the growing stem to the ground. Does anyone have any measurements (or at least guesstimates) on the RATE of lose of stem for any aroid? Lots of questions, but thanks for any ideas (and yes, i'll be reading tom ray's papares on this) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Note: this is a very old post, so no reply function is available.