Looks Like Swiss Cheese but Tastes Like a Banana

A tropical plant that bears a most delectable fruit has been parading as a mere houseplant.

It’s a common houseplant, and you may even be growing it. Perhaps you grow it under the unassuming name of split-leaf philodendron or the more descriptive name of Swiss cheese plant. The plant is really a philodendron look-alike with the botanical name Monstera deliciosa.

Monstera, as the plant should be properly called, can have rather monstrous leaves, and that may be how it got that part of its name.

Along the edges of Mexico’s steamy tropical jungles, wild monsteras grow leaves that are a foot or more across. In that bright, dappled light, the leaves are pocked with large holes much like Swiss cheese and also are cut deeply along their edges.

Indoor growing conditions are often not good enough for the leaves to develop large size or holes.

The name monstera could have come about because of the size of the plant itself. In a tropical forest, this vine will grasp a tree trunk with its aerial roots, then climb 30 feet or more.

You’ll rarely see such exuberant growth indoors.

Still, monstera is one of the easiest houseplants to grow--another similarity it shares with philodendrons. The better the growing conditions, the better the plant looks.

Except in summer, monsteras love high humidity and as much light as possible. Being truly tropical, the plants prefer year-round heat--not mere warmth but heat.

With good growing conditions, a monstera vine needs support.

One way to provide support is to roll up a length of chicken wire, pack it full of coarse sphagnum moss, then stake that mossy column next to the plant. This sphagnum moss cylinder increases the humidity near the plant and provides moist support to which the aerial roots can cling.

The plant is almost as happy climbing any rough piece of wood.

What about that “deliciosa” fruit?

The ripe fruits, which follow the spearlike flowers, look like a cross between an ear of corn and a pine cone. The fruit must be fully ripe before it can be eaten, at which point the flavor is a tasty blend of pineapple and banana.

Although a monstera plant is very easy to grow, it hardly ever bears fruit without a tropical climate or a perpetually warm greenhouse.