This was for sale among a mixed selection of caladiums. All the leaves looked like this one.

Thanks for looking.

I don;t think I have ever seen that particular one. Do all the leaves look the same?

Yes they do. I know sometimes you see caladiums that do not develop their pattern fully and I suspect is one but I can't even find one that matches how the veins run.

It may be one of the Thai ones. Florida is a huge producer of Caladiums...they breed them here and introduce new ones every year. But those are mostly designed for landscape use, and most get replaced in people's gardens here on a yearly basis like annuals.

But the Thai caladiums are mean to be grown as centerpiece plants in pots and saved over year to year. Kind of like daffodils and tulips and stuff like that (which we cannot grow here in Florida...the summer is top hot, winter is too warm, and the bulbs rot unless you dig them. The caladiums will also rot). I have seen a few of the Thai caladiums and their leaves seem to be a bit thicker than regular caladiums. I have toyed with the idea of getting a few

Thanks, Gina. I was hoping you would see this post.
Yes, it does have more substance. I haven't had the best success with caladium roots. Only once I actually increased a plant that survived. Usually they are smaller when I dig them up and can barely produce a plant next season if it doesn't dry up completely. Do you have any advice on overwintering caladium bulbs and how to bulk them up during the growing season?

That's the thing. You really can't. I think that Caladiums are possibly the only genus of aroids where the stands actually DECREASE on a yearly basis, rather than increase and spread. It the breeders could solve that problem and make them more like true perennials, it would be great. People here just know that they are going to have to buy them as annuals every year. And like you said, even if you do dig them, they get smaller every year and eventually have to be replaced.

I know that there are a very few species of Caladiums that are evergreen and have no dormancy period. I have only one of those. But it is not one that could be planted out in a climate any cooler than maybe zone 10B-11+ And they are water lovers, they grow along stream banks in South America. There are also a couple of species caladiums that do go dormant every winter but do return. But none have the showy leaves of the hybrids. I think that is the trade off...showy and annual, or plain and perennial

Maybe I'll be lucky and this one will count as plain. I suppose that this one would not qualify as being a good example by commercial standards but I like it. It's subtle but elegant and I can't buy it again! The green is a very rich dark green color, something I like to find to contrast with other greens.

I am tempted to show a picture of it to a caladium grower like caladium classics and get a comment from them. I don't know if they will answer but I have bought from them at least once and I buy their stuff locally so maybe they'll pay attention to me and comment.
I read that caladium growers divide the bulbs in order to increase them but I don't trust myself to do something like that and I have too much mold in the environment here.
Frog in a Blender was the only caladium I ever increased.

I think Frog is a Thai. Brian Williams developed that one I think

Interesting. I did recently come across his website.
So maybe it will work out after all. I have always heard the Thai types are harder to keep alive. When I pot it up, I will get an idea how big the bulb is.

It reminds me of a Thai variety that I used to have around here but haven't seen reappear in a couple of years. It would start out with some solid green leaves that with age would show the pretty colors. This photo shows an entire plant; some leaves have very little coloration and other, older leaves show lots of pattern and color:

That is a pretty one!

LIN that is a GORGEOUS one!

I really liked it a lot. I'm hoping it's still around here somewhere; I just went back through pic's stored on my laptop and found this single (not so great photo) taken this past April so it was here a few months ago! I'll have to look around at the pots out there to see if I can figure out which one it was in. I see Viola to the right and I know that's growing in a couple of different pots on my pool deck. I'd really like to find and save the bulbs of this Caladium if they are still in one of the pots because I've never seen the Thai varieties for sale here in Florida. This one single plant was growing in the side yard when we bought the house in 2015, so I dug it up and potted it.

I have seen that one before only online and out of stock, never for sale locally. Is it the same as Pom Kaew or Porn Kaew? I have seen it at NewLife Tropicals but that company is in Thailand and I know nothing about it.
https://www.newlifetropicals.c...
Another one Gingerwood Nursery. Seems to be in Louisianna but who knows these days. There are so many scam listings. Seems real though. There are no blue roses and things are marked sold out.
https://gingerwoodnursery.com/...
Florida Hill Nursery, out of stock
https://floridahillnursery.com...

Ginger wood is a real nursery, run by a really great guy named Tim Chapman who really knows gingers.

The only Thai caladium I have seen available from a nursery I would actually trust besides the Frog one is one called 'Thai Style' that Ecuagenera (in Apopka FL) has in stock.

Lin, hopefully you will find it in one of your pots. It is a special one to look for. Let us know if you find it.

Thanks for the recommendation, Gina. I will add Gingerwood and Ecuagenera to my bookmarks. They seem reasonable too.

Thai Style does look good. It reminds me of one I grew last year, Caribbean Coral, if you look at the table shot on the Ecuadorian site. (The bulb dried up over winter). Actually, if you look at their listings of Thai Style and Thai Beauty, it looks like the pot shot of Thai Beauty is Thai Style. The table shot looks completely different.
Here is Caribbean in June when the red coloration was stronger and closer to Thai Style on the table.

It whitened up by July.

I went back to the place where I bought this caladium and I this is what happened. They had brought out a few more caladiums that were very close to the one in question. One of the leaves showed more of the original pattern. I didn't buy any of these.





Probably they were supposed to be like this one which I bought at the same place.

There are so many that are so similar. Looks a lot like one I got this year:
The thread "Caladium leaf anomaly, growing a... tail?" in Bulbs forum