Calathea white fusion is easily one of the most beautiful houseplants. It is beautiful in person and photogenic, but damn, it is high maintenance. I had a very hard time with the plant and an even harder time to find useful information about its natural habitat on the internet. Therefore, once and for all, I thought I can resolve at least one of the issues. Hopefully, this will help you with your Calathea white fusion.
Introduction
Calathea White Fusion is a cultivar, meaning it is selectively developed by humans, which also explains why we cannot find any information about its natural habitat. Technically, the correct name should be Goeppertia leitzei var. fusion white. WHAT!!? Yes I know. Let me explain. To make it easier on all of us, I will refer to it as “White Fusion” in this article without its genus and species.
Where Did It Come From?
White Fusion was discovered in Malaysia. Back in May of 2007, in a commercial nursery in Malaysia, a man spotted an interesting looking plant among many Calathea lietzei (now Goeppertia leitzei). Imagine seeing a beautiful variegated Monstera deliciosa albo among the regular Monstera deliciosa… Must be a nice surprise. Anyway, this smart man took his lucky find, a Calathea lietzei with a whole plant mutation, and brought it home to his own nursery in Florida. Subsequently, he spent years on testing, evaluation, reproducing, and eventually developed a beautiful plant with a stable mutation that we now known as “Calathea white fusion”. This man is the inventor of “Calathea white fusion”, Taiyan Yam. Thanks to Mr. Yam, we now have one more gorgeous plant to in the houseplant market to select from.
White Fusion has beautiful variegated leaves, and the variegation pattern varies from each leaf. Like a typical Calathea/Goeppertia, it also has purple coloration under the leaves. Compare to its parent, White Fusion is similar in most horticultural characteristics, and different on leaf variegation and size. White Fusion is more compact, and also has smaller leaves.
Below is a comparison of the leaves: left is Calathea lietzei, middle and right are both White Fusion. Can you see the resemblance?
The image on the left is a partial image by Montrealais, full image is accessible here.
In 2013, Inventor Mr. Yam filed a US plant patent application and subsequently obtained a plant patent in 2015. Interestingly, in the plant patent, Yam named this plant “Calathea Fusion White“, not “Calathea White Fusion.” I don’t know if something got mislabeled at some point or “White Fusion” sounds more catchy than “Fusion White”, now this plant is commonly referred to and known as the “Calathea White Fusion.” (If it were up to me, I would probably call this plant “white confusion” because this plant is confusing af.)
Side Note: A Little Introduction to Plant Patents
In case you are curious what does it mean to infringe a plant patent, here is an extremely brief summary: unless you have the authorization from the patent owner, the following actions count as plant patent infringement: asexually reproducing, selling, offering for sale, or using the patented plant or any of its parts in the United States or importing them into the United States. What is asexual reproduction you may ask? Asexual reproduction is the propagation of a plant without the use of fertilized seeds to assure an exact genetic copy of the plant being reproduced. Examples of asexual reproductions are rooting cuttings, grafting and budding, apomictic seed, bulbs, division, slips, layering, rhizomes, runner, corms, tissue culture, and nuclear embryos. Simply put, do not propagate the plant yourself and sell it unless you have a license. This plant patent will be valid until the end of the patent term on December 14, 2033, so please do not infringe the patent during its patent term.
What kind of growing conditions do White Fusion like?
Natural habitat is always the best source to learn about a plant. Since White Fusion is a cultivar, let us look at its parent first: Calathea lietzei (now Goeppertia Lietzei).
1. Goeppertia Lietzei‘s Natural Habitat
Calathea lietzei is a species native to East Brazil. The current Latin name as I am writing this is Goeppertia Lietzei. As if it is not confusing enough, besides Calathea Lietzei, it is also known as Calathea glaziovii, Maranta lietzei, and Phyllodes lietzei. 🤪 In 2012, a molecular based study redefined the genus Goeppertia Nees to include some of the subgenera of Calathea Meyer, hence some Calathea species were transferred to Goeppertia Nees. Naturally (not really for us botanical muggles), Calathea Lietzei became Goeppertia lietzei.
Despite originated from Brazil, Goeppertia lietzei is actually not native to the Amazon Rainforest. East Brazil covers a wide range of climate:
- on the wetter side of the spectrum, the Atlantic Forest is a rainforest with average temperatures vary from 14-21oC (57-70oF). The average rainfall is about 2000 millimeters. (Fun fact: The Atlantic Forest has 80% of the known primates, 54% of the known trees, and 40% of known animals that are found only there and nowhere else. It is cool but also scary because it faces significant deforestation. If you are interested in learning more, check out their website.)
- on the dryer side of the spectrum, it has a hot and dry semi-desert climate with unpredictable rainfall. It has a rather short rainy season that lasts about 3 months, then a drought for the rest of the year. Despite the climate being called semi-desert, it is not a desert after all. The annual rainfall average between 500-800 millimeters. In comparison, the Sahara desert’s annual rainfall range from 35 to 100 millimeters. For more perspective, the average annual rainfall in some of the cities in the US are: New York-1139 millimeters, LA-375 millimeters, Chicago-1075 millimeters.
I did not find any resources to indicate that Calathea lietzei is native to the Atlantic Forest only. Considering that my White Fusion survived in the harsh Chicago indoors with humidity as low as 20%, I would not be surprised if it lives in the semi-desert backlands as well.
2. White Fusion’s Growing Condition By It’s Inventor
Thanks to the stringent disclosure requirements for obtaining plant patent, we get to learn about Mr. Yam’s growing conditions.
a. Location — Apopka, Florida
Mr. Yam grew and developed White Fusion in a poly house in his nursery in Apopka, Florida, a city to the north of Orlando, USDA Hardiness Zones 9b.
b. Temperature — 80-90°F during the day; 55-70°F at night
The daytime temperature ranges from 80°F to 90°F and nighttime temperature ranges from 55°F to 70°F.
c. Lighting — 550 to 10,000 Foot Candles
There was no artificial light adjustment or photoperiodic treatments. The natural light condition varies between 550 to 10,000 foot candles. The only exception was the first 2 months of development, the plants were grown in shade in about 350 to 550 foot candles of light. Unless you are trying to grow new plants from scratch, 550 to 10,000 foot candles is the number you should be looking for.
Mr. Yam’s patent stated that White Fusion can tolerate less light than Calathea dottie. I don’t have any experience with Calathea dottie so I cannot write about it.
My Personal Experience
When I started writing this article, I thought here would be where I’d tell you how I made this plant happy and lush. But, reality is harsh. All I have are heartbroken stories about how I killed mine. If you can avoid making my mistakes, maybe you will be successful.
1. Buying this plant in the winter is a Big No No.
I bought my first White Fusion from Ariumbotanicals in the middle of the winter. It arrived as such as gorgeous plant. It was definitely love at first sight… and apparently only my sight, not the White Fusion’s sight.
It survived the harsh and dry Chicago winter indoors (20% humidity), then dropped all except for two of the leaves when the winter was over. With only those two small yellow leaves, it lived for another 2 months! See what I mean about White “confusion”?
If there is only one thing to learn from my personal experience, do not buy this plant in the winter! If the leaves turn yellow and crispy, it is irreversible and the only thing to do is to cut it off. This plant is not a vigorous grower but it grows relatively fast during spring and summer. My first White Fusion had zero growth during winter, and by the time spring arrived, it had no green leaf and probably did not have any energy to grow any new green leaf so it did not survive to see the summer. My second White Fusion (which you saw a photo of at the beginning of the article) pushed out new leaves in Spring within weeks after I cut off old leaves.
There are two ways Calathea/Goeppertia can grow new leaves. I don’t have photos from White Fusion so I’ll use Goeppertia warszewiczii as an example. The first way is by growing new leaves from the same plant, you will see all the stalks connected, like the image below on the left. The second way is by growing a new baby plant close to the mother plant, you will see the stalk separate from the mother plant, like the image below on the right.
Based on my personal experience, the second growth is better because the new baby plant is more acclimated to your home environment than the mother plant. However, as you can probably imagine, producing a new plant costs more energy than producing a new leaf. Therefore, if you obtain your Calathea/Goeppertia in the Spring, it will have a lot of time to push out new growth and grow some new plants. If you buy it in the winter, unless you have the perfect growing conditions, you are waiting on the plant to exhaust the current leaves to go dormant or die.
Mr. Yam said in his patent that White Fusion produces side shoots vigorously from an early age, compared to Calathea Freddie. I don’t have any experience with Calathea Freddie, so I cannot attest the accuracy of that. I do know from experience that White Fusion does not produce side more frequently, or “vigorously”, than a Goeppertia Warscewiczii or a Goeppertia zebrina.
2. Don’t wait too long to water your calathea
In the spring when I was quarantined at home, I couldn’t resist and bought another one from Gardengoodsdirect.
It was a lot larger and was doing really well for several months. I usually wait until the leaves get droopy and almost but not yet flat, then I would water and the plant would perk up within a day. However, out of failed curiosity on my part, I left it too long one time (about 3 days after it got very droopy), and it never quite recovered.
3. Do not disturb the roots
The last advice I can give you is to try not to repot. If you have to repot, don’t disturb the roots. White Fusion, like its parent Goeppertia Leitze, has very fine roots. See here for a specimen from KEW showcasing the roots on the bottom left.
So…
Now that you know more about Calathea White Fusion, are you ready to try again? I know I am…not!
