Maranta Essay

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Maranta, a genus of tropical flowering plants, become popular houseplants all over the world and are frequently used in regional cuisines. The genus Maranta is a member of the Marantceae family, also popularised as the Prayer-Plant family. Maranta is a neotropical genus, species of which are found in shaded and moist habitats in forests. Maranta arundinacea, also known as Arrowroot, Obedience plant, Bermuda arrowroot, Araru, Ararao , West Indian arrowroot or Hulankeeriya. It has striking colour leaves and is utilised for ornamentation of entrances, windows, offices and rooms. Few species such as Maranta leuconeura (prayer plant) and M. arundinacea are used as regular houseplants in a warmish house or conservatory environment.
ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION
Marantas are named for Bartolommeo Maranta, a sixteenth century Venetian botanist. Calathea is derived from the Greek …show more content…

About 20 species are generally identified in Maranta. They all have got naturally form perennial clumps and rhizomes. The numerous oval, evergreen leaves are entire along with sheathing stalks. In day time, the leaves are flat and folded up erect in the evening, so the common name "prayer plant" which attaches to the genus and its species - especially M. leuconeura (Dorling, 2008). The flowers are small consisting of three petals and two larger petal-like staminodes. Maranta leuconeura is a monocotyledonous, shade-loving ornamental foliage plant belonging to the Marantaceae (Bailey, 1949).The family Marantaceae comes under the order Zingiberales and is regarded as a sister group of the Cannaceae (Andersson and Chase,

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