What Alocasia Are You Actually Growing?

The most important thing to know before buying another Alocasia: the name on the tag is almost certainly incorrect. Not occasionally, not in edge cases, systematically, across the trade, as a baseline condition.

The plant sold as "Alocasia Amazonica" in virtually every garden centre and online retailer is, in almost every case, a compact cultivar called 'Polly'. These are not the same plant. The hybrid name "Amazonica" was never validly registered as a scientific publication and has been classified as an invalid horticultural name since 2009. The plant on the shelf is 'Polly', discovered at a Florida nursery decades after the original hybrid was created, and distinguished by puckered leaves the original does not have.

This is one example. The naming chaos runs through the entire genus. This article is the payoff for the setup in Article 1 of this series, which documented five prior synonyms in the genus's two-century taxonomic history. This guide covers what the names actually mean, how to verify them, and where the care baseline from Articles 2 through Article 5 applies without modification and where it genuinely does not.

Let's dig in.

This UG Article Will Help You Understand:

• The real difference between a species and a hybrid in the Alocasia trade, and why it matters for naming reliability
• How the naming chaos happened and why it persists across the supply chain
• What the IAS Cultivar Registry is, who runs it, and how to use it to verify a name
• The documented history of Alocasia 'Amazonica' and 'Polly', including which one you actually own
• What jewel Alocasias are, which species belong to the group, and how their care compares to the series baseline
• The lineage and care profile of Alocasia x calidora and Alocasia x portora, the two large commercial hybrids from Aroidia Research

Got Things to Do? This Is For You!

The Alocasia genus contains approximately 90 accepted species alongside a rapidly expanding catalogue of named hybrids and cultivars. Most plants circulating in the trade are sold under names that are unregistered, informally assigned, or demonstrably incorrect.

The plant labelled “Alocasia Amazonica” on retail shelves is almost universally Alocasia ‘Polly’, a compact selection discovered at Silver Krome Gardens in Homestead, Florida, decades after the original 1950s hybrid was created by Florida nurseryman Salvadore Mauro. The two are related but not identical, and the “Amazonica” name itself has been invalid under botanical nomenclature since 2009.

The care framework established in Articles 2 through 5 of this series applies to most of the genus without modification, including the majority of commercially sold plants.

Jewel Alocasias, including Alocasia reginula, A. cuprea, A. baginda cultivars, and A. melo, follow the same basic light and moisture framework as larger tropical species but are less tolerant of overwatering at their compact scale. They are more susceptible to root rot and generally perform better at higher ambient humidity, with practitioner consensus placing the preferred range at 60 to 80% RH.

Large commercial hybrids such as Alocasia × calidora and Alocasia × portora, both developed by LariAnn Garner at Aroidia Research in the early 1980s, follow the same core care principles at a dramatically larger landscape scale.

The International Aroid Society serves as the International Cultivar Registration Authority for Araceae. Their registry at aroidcultivars.org is the authoritative source for cultivar name verification.

What is the difference between an Alocasia species and a hybrid?

A species is a naturally occurring population of plants that share consistent, stable characteristics and reproduce true to type through appropriate propagation. A hybrid is a deliberate or accidental cross between two different species or cultivars. A cultivar covers both: any group of cultivated plants selected for characteristics that are distinct, uniform, and stable through propagation.

In the Alocasia trade, this distinction matters for two reasons. First, a species name carries ecological information. Knowing that Alocasia melo is endemic to Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and grows on rocky ultramafic substrate near fast-flowing streams tells you something specific about the plant's leaf architecture, its compact growth habit, and its sensitivity profile. The name is not just a label; it is a compressed description of where and how the plant evolved. Second, a hybrid name is theoretically more reliable in the trade than an informal species name, because a documented hybrid has known parents and a traceable origin. In practice, most Alocasia hybrid names circulating in retail never went through any formal documentation process. The theory does not hold.

The category of "cultivar" is where most of the confusion lives. A cultivar can be a selected form of a species (Alocasia macrorrhizos 'Borneo Giant', a large-form selection of the giant taro), an interspecific hybrid (Alocasia x calidora), or a selection from within a hybrid complex (Alocasia 'Polly', selected from within the Amazonica hybrid group). All three are governed by the same registration rules. The trade applies none of them consistently.

FYI: The International Aroid Society (IAS) is the appointed International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA) for Araceae, a designation granted by the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). The IAS cultivar registry is maintained at aroidcultivars.org and follows the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). Registration does not confer legal protection for a cultivar name, but it establishes it as the valid, published name for international use.

Why are Alocasia names in the trade so unreliable?

Alocasia names in the trade are unreliable because most named cultivars were never submitted for formal registration, many predate the current registry infrastructure entirely, and the genus itself has been reclassified five times since its first formal description in 1832.

As Article 1 of this series documented, Alocasia passed through the genera Colocasia, Ensolenanthe, Xenophya, Schizocasia, and Panzhuyuia before settling into its current accepted classification. Many trade names are rooted in those synonymized genera. Nurseries developed their own names for popular plants, and those names spread through retail catalogues, international distributors, and eventually the internet, long before any governing body existed to standardise them. Once a name is embedded in the supply chain, it is nearly impossible to correct at scale.

The problem compounds with hybrids. A hybridiser may create and name a plant accurately. By the time it passes through a wholesale tissue culture lab, two intermediate growers, and a major retailer, the name may have been shortened, misspelled, transliterated from another language, or replaced entirely with a name the marketing department preferred. Alocasia x portora, a hybrid developed by LariAnn Garner at Aroidia Research in the early 1980s, has accumulated at least five alternative names in commerce: "portadora," "portodora," "portidora," "Portore," and simply "Portora." None of these is the valid published name. All of them refer, in varying accuracy, to plants from the same cross.

Tissue culture does not help. The propagation method responsible for most of the indoor plant supply produces plants accurately, a genotype is copied reliably, but the name on the resulting plant reflects whatever the laboratory received, not what the IAS registry records. The plant is right. The tag is whatever survived the chain.

Myth Check: Seeing a name repeated across multiple retailers, catalogues, and websites does not make that name correct. Alocasia "Amazonica" has been in continuous print use for over seventy years. It remains an invalid horticultural name under botanical nomenclature.

What is the IAS Cultivar Registry and how do you use it?

The IAS Cultivar Registry is the official database for Araceae cultivar names, maintained by the International Aroid Society as the appointed ICRA for the family. It is publicly accessible at aroidcultivars.org.

To verify a cultivar name, search the genus name and look for the registration status of the result. Entries marked "Established: Yes" have been formally accepted by the Cultivar Committee and published in the IAS Newsletter, this is the confirmed valid name. Entries marked "Accepted: Yes" have passed committee review but may not yet be published. Entries without either status are pending or not accepted.

The registry records the accepted cultivar name, the parentage where known, the hybridiser or originator, and the registration status. The name in the registry is the name to use. If a plant does not appear in the registry, two possibilities exist. Either it is sold under an informal trade name that has not been submitted for registration, which covers a significant portion of collector cultivars currently in commerce, particularly newer hybrids developed in Southeast Asia, or the name does not correspond to a consistent, definable cultivar at all. Absence from the registry does not indicate an inferior plant. It indicates a name that cannot be verified through the official channel.

Pro Tip: Before purchasing any named Alocasia cultivar, search aroidcultivars.org. An "Established: Yes" status confirms you are getting what the label describes. If the name does not appear at all, treat it as an informal trade name, not a registered cultivar designation, and calibrate your purchase expectations accordingly.

What is your "Amazonica" actually called?

The plant sold as "Alocasia Amazonica" in virtually every garden centre and online retailer is, with very high probability, Alocasia 'Polly'. These are related plants, but they are not the same plant, and only one of them is on the shelf in any meaningful quantity.

The origin of the confusion is documented. Alocasia 'Amazonica' is a hybrid created in the 1950s by Salvadore Mauro, a Florida greenhouse grower whose nursery was called Amazon Nursery. Mauro crossed Alocasia sanderiana with Alocasia longiloba 'Watsoniana' and named the result after his business. The name was never validly published as a scientific registration. Since 2009, Kew's World Checklist of Selected Plant Families has listed "Alocasia x amazonica" as an invalid horticultural name. Botanist Alistair Hay has in correspondence with aroid researcher Steve Lucas advocated for the IAS to formally publish Alocasia 'Amazonica' as the valid cultivar name in place of the nothospecies designation. 

Alocasia 'Polly' is a selection from within the Amazonica hybrid group, discovered by Denis and Bill Rotolante at Silver Krome Gardens in Homestead, Florida, prior to 2000. Its leaves are bullate, puckered, with a textured surface, unlike the smoother leaves of the original 'Amazonica'. It is more compact, produces more leaves on a smaller plant, and has proven far better suited to indoor conditions than the original hybrid. The original 'Amazonica' is largely out of commercial production in the United States and Europe. What is sold is 'Polly'.

For care purposes, both share the same parentage and the same fundamental requirements: consistent moisture, adequate light, and regular dilute fertilizer when light is sufficient. The compact size of 'Polly' means its substrate dries faster relative to root volume than a larger-format Alocasia, which reinforces the consistent moisture argument from the Water and Nutrients article in this series.

Myth Check: Neither Alocasia 'Amazonica' nor Alocasia 'Polly' originates from the Amazon, from Africa, or from anywhere in the Americas. The genus Alocasia has no native range outside Asia and eastern Australia. The name "Amazonica" derives from the name of a Florida nursery, not from a geographic origin.

What are jewel Alocasias and do they need different care?

Jewel Alocasias are an informal group of compact, thick-leaved species predominantly endemic to Borneo. The term has no formal taxonomic definition, but in cultivation it consistently refers to Alocasia reginula, Alocasia cuprea, Alocasia baginda and its cultivars, and Alocasia melo.

The defining characteristics of the group are size and leaf architecture. These are small plants. A mature Alocasia reginula 'Black Velvet' typically reaches 18 inches (45 cm) in total height. Alocasia melo, described formally by botanist Alistair Hay from specimens endemic to Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, matures at approximately 10 to 14 inches (25 to 35 cm). The leaves across the group are thick, leathery, and in most cases heavily textured: the deep armour-plating of Alocasia baginda 'Dragon Scale' and 'Silver Dragon', the rugose melon-rind surface of Alocasia melo, the iridescent copper and emerald sheen of Alocasia cuprea, the light-absorbing velvet black of Alocasia reginula 'Black Velvet'. These textures are not decorative accidents. They reflect structural adaptations to high-humidity, variable-light forest floor environments.

The core care requirements from Articles 2 through 5 apply to jewel Alocasias without fundamental modification. They need consistent light in the 300 to 500 µmol/m²/s range for active growth. They need consistently moist substrate matched to their photosynthetic rate. They benefit from dilute, regular fertilizer when light is sufficient to drive demand. The series baseline was built on the biology of the genus, not on the morphology of large-format species; it holds.

Where jewel Alocasias genuinely differ from the baseline is in root sensitivity and humidity tolerance. The thick leaves mean a brief dry-down between waterings does less immediate visible damage than it would to a thin-leaved large species. But the root system is smaller and proportionally more sensitive to anaerobic conditions than that of a large-format plant with a correspondingly large root mass. A jewel Alocasia in substrate that remains too wet for too long reaches root failure faster than a similarly watered Alocasia macrorrhizos. The failure mode is the same; the margin is narrower.

Humidity is more critical for most jewel Alocasias than the series baseline implies for the genus as a whole. Compact species, particularly Alocasia baginda cultivars and Alocasia cuprea, are more sensitive to low VPD and show leaf tip damage and arrested new growth at ambient humidity levels that a large Alocasia macrorrhizos would tolerate without visible reaction. Practitioner consensus places the preferred range at 60 to 80% relative humidity for most jewel species.

Fun Fact: Alocasia melo grows in ultramafic rock formations in its native Sabah habitat, thin soil over mineral-rich, often toxic-to-most-plants substrate that few species can colonise. Botanist Alistair Hay's original formal description notes that cultivated specimens at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney grew normally in a perlite-heavy aroid mix with no special provision for the ultramafic chemistry. The plant's strange native home shaped its compact size and thick cuticle. It does not require ultramafic substrate in cultivation.

What are Alocasia x calidora and Alocasia x portora and how do they grow?

Alocasia x calidora and Alocasia x portora are two large-format hybrids developed by LariAnn Garner at Aroidia Research, a privately funded hybridisation operation in Florida, in the early 1980s. Both were among Garner's earliest hybrid efforts. Both have since become widely distributed under names other than their valid published designations.

Alocasia x calidora is the cross of Alocasia odora and Alocasia gageana. The plant widely available in the trade is a selection that expresses more of the vigorous, upright odora character: large, rounded leaves on a robust, landscape-sized plant. Garner's own selection from the same cross grows more compactly and inherits more of the rounded leaf shape characteristic of the smaller A. gageana parent. It also produces abundant offsets and tolerates sun or semi-shade in warm-climate landscape conditions. Trade aliases including "calodora," "caladora," and "Persian Palm" all refer to propagations from the calidora cross, not to Garner's specific compact selection.

Alocasia x portora is the cross of Alocasia odora and Alocasia portei. It divides into two phenotypically distinct groups based on petiole and main vein colouration: "Portora Green" with uniformly green petioles and veins, and "Portora Red" with maroon to reddish petioles and veins. A specimen of Portora Green grown in the ground at Aroidia Research exceeded 5 feet (1.5 m) in height. Garner's selected commercial release from the Portora Red group carries the cultivar name 'Thunder Waves'. The invalid names "portadora," "portodora," "portidora," and "Portore" that appear in the trade are not Garner's selected form; they are propagations from the broader portora cross sold under names Garner did not choose and does not endorse.

Both hybrids follow the care baseline established in this series. Their care requirements follow the same principles at a dramatically different scale. A 5-foot portora growing actively at adequate light is genuinely a heavy feeder in the conditional sense this series established: high light drives high photosynthetic rate, which drives high water and nutrient demand. The principle holds. The volume of substrate and frequency of feeding simply scale with the plant.

Nerd Corner: The "x" in Alocasia x calidora and Alocasia x portora is the nothospecies notation under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, indicating an interspecific hybrid of known parentage. It encompasses all progeny of that specific cross, regardless of selection. Garner's 'Thunder Waves' is one registered cultivar selection from within the portora nothospecies. The other propagations in commerce under invalid names are also Alocasia x portora — they are just unselected or differently selected forms of the same cross, not Garner's specific cultivar. If you skip this paragraph, nothing in the care section changes.

Which Alocasia species genuinely need different care than the series baseline?

Most of the commonly sold Alocasia genus does not require care that deviates meaningfully from the framework established in Articles 2 through 5. The differences across the genus are real, but narrower than the scale of available care advice implies.

Jewel Alocasias need the same light, moisture, and fertilizer framework as larger tropical species. They require more attention to drainage sensitivity and benefit from higher ambient humidity due to compact size. These are calibration differences within the same framework, not categorical departures from it.

Alocasia melo is the species most frequently cited as requiring fundamentally different care because of its ultramafic native habitat. The evidence does not support this claim in cultivation. Botanical records from the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney show melo growing normally in a standard perlite and composted pine needle mix with no special substrate chemistry. The ultramafic adaptation is an evolutionary fact; it is not a cultivation requirement. Treat it as a jewel Alocasia with higher sensitivity to overwatering.

Alocasia perakensis is a montane species adapted to higher-elevation habitats in peninsular Malaysia, where temperatures are cooler and moisture more consistent than in lowland forest. It tolerates cooler temperatures than the lowland species that form the series baseline. Specific peer-reviewed cultivation data is not available; this is practitioner consensus only.

Alocasia 'Amazonica' and 'Polly' are smaller than large landscape species and marginally more sensitive to substrate moisture swings due to compact root volume. Their requirements are within the series baseline without modification.

The honest answer to "which species needs different care" is this: none of the commonly sold ones require care outside the series framework once you recognise that the framework is built on the biology of the genus, not on the morphology of one specific size class. The adjustments across the genus are in sensitivity and margin, not in principle.

Alocasia Species and Cultivar Quick Reference

Where do you find the correct name for what you own?

The IAS Cultivar Registry at aroidcultivars.org is the correct first stop for any named Alocasia cultivar. For species identification, Kew's Plants of the World Online at powo.science.kew.org is the authoritative scientific checklist for accepted species names across the genus.

If the name on your tag does not appear in the IAS registry, three possibilities exist. The cultivar is sold under an informal trade name that has not been submitted for registration. The name is incorrect, applied by someone in the supply chain who borrowed whatever name seemed plausible. Or the name does not correspond to a consistent, definable cultivar at all, only to a description someone invented for marketing. In all three cases, the useful action is the same: describe the plant by its physical characteristics, note the parentage if traceable, and treat the tag name as a trade name rather than a registered cultivar designation.

Aroidpedia at aroidpedia.com/alocasia maintains a cultivar database alongside the species list and is a useful secondary reference for collector cultivars in commerce but not yet formally registered with the IAS. It is not the authority; the IAS registry is. But it documents what is circulating and provides parentage notes where known.

The naming chaos in this genus is real, documented, and not going away quickly. The IAS registry is the only mechanism that actually resolves it. Using it takes thirty seconds.

Frequent Questions About Alocasia Cultivars

Sources & Further Reading

• Hay, A. (1994). The Genus Alocasia in West Malesia and Sulawesi. The Gardens' Bulletin Singapore, 46(1). Formal description of Alocasia melo, including habitat notes and cultivation records from the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.
• Nauheimer, L., Metzler, D., and Renner, S.S. (2012). Global history of the ancient monocot family Araceae inferred with models accounting for past continental positions and previous ranges based on fossils. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 63(1): 43–51.
• International Aroid Society, Cultivar Registry: aroidcultivars.org
• International Aroid Society, Alocasia genus page: aroid.org/genera/alocasia
• Aroidia Research, Alocasia x calidora: aroidiaresearch.org/calidora.htm
• Aroidia Research, Alocasia x portora: aroidiaresearch.org/portora.htm
• Aroidpedia, Alocasia genus profile: aroidpedia.com/alocasia
• Kew POWO, Alocasia checklist: powo.science.kew.org
• 50 Shades Green, Alocasia Care Series Hub — The Unlikely Gardener
• Alocasia Article 1: What Alocasias Actually Are — taxonomy, habitat, and the five prior synonyms
• Alocasia Article 3: Grow Mix Composition, [LINK-ARTICLE-3: insert URL when confirmed live]