Featured Plant of the Week (Tacca Bat Plant)

September 16, 2011

Tacca Bat Plant

We've featured a number of exotic and unusual indoor plants here in the past: Tillandsia, Dischidia, and Nepenthes to list just a few. So it takes something really special to make all these other entries seem pedestrian, but Tacca integrifolia and Tacca chantrieri do this handily. Named after their audacious flowers, Tacca is a surefire way to get customers curious with its one-of-a-kind look. This beautiful plant has just arrived at BloomRite® Gardens, so the timing is perfect to take a closer look. Read on to find out why the Tacca is a guaranteed sale in your store.

Sometimes called Cat's Whiskers, Tiger flower, or Devil Flower, the Tacca genus is a member of the Dioscoreaceae family which means it's closely related to yams (yes really, the vegetable). The two species we sell here make their home in South East Asia, though there are others that live in the tropical regions of Africa and Australia. BloomRite® Gardens customers are probably already familiar with Tacca chantrieri, or the Bat Plant. The other species, Tacca integrifolia, is a new arrival on the store floor; its common name is usually just the White Bat Plant.

These two species are distinguished by their distinctively shaped bracts that extend like bat wings over central cluster of maroon flowers. Growing on one slender spike from the base of the plant, a pair of the bracts extends over the clusters of true, dark purple flowers. The other distinguishing feature of both species of Tacca is the very strange whiskers that grow from the bottom of the flower. These are also bracts, like the structures that give the plant its name, and can grow up to a foot long in best conditions. If there's a use for these tendrils it doesn't seem to be common knowledge, but it seems reasonable to guess that they help attract pollinators in their native tropical environment.

The main differences between T. integrifolia and T. chantrieri are that the first has white or near white bracts veined with purpled, and the second's bracts are virtually black. The white Bat Plant also towers over its dark sibling; ultimately growing to be twice as tall as T. chantrieri's 2 feet. As well as being taller, T. Integrifolia has larger and broader leaves

At this point most readers would probably expect to find out that Taccas are picky and sensitive beauties, they appear to be easy to care for. The main things are to keep the potting medium moist all the time, and to keep them out of full sun. They thrive in very shady places where it's warm and wet, so growing Tacca indoors should be a piece of cake. Growing them outdoors is tricky though, unless it never drops below 60°F at the site they are planted.

You can find Tacca integrifolia and Tacca chantrieri at BloomRite® Gardens right now, for $39.95 and $22.35 respectively. The White Bat Plant comes in an 8" grower's pot, and Black Bat Plant comes in a 6" pot. Inventory is very tight on these exotic plants, so be sure to place an order to guarantee availability!