Too little light will cause its beautiful leaf patterns to get lighter. On the other hand, the plant will likewise tell you if it is not getting enough light. Similarly, the leaves can get lighter in color as they get bleached. So, when you see brown blotches on the leaves or their tips, it is a sign of too much direct sun. Doing so will damage its leaves burning them. However, the most important thing to remember with your zebra plant is that you don’t want to keep it under direct sunlight. As such, as long as it gets medium light indoors, it will be happy.

Thus, it is used to dapple or diffused light. That’s because in its native environment, it lives under the shade of larger trees. While bright light brings out the amazing colors in its leaves, it doesn’t need a lot of it to grow well. The calathea zebrina grows best in medium to bright, indirect light. Calathea Zebrina Temperature & HumidityĬalathea Zebrina Plant Care Calathea Zebrina Light.So, you’ll want to give it similar conditions for optimum growth.

The plant itself gets to between 1 to 3 feet tall when grown indoors, while its leaves will take center stage growing up to t to 1.5 feet long.īeing natives of the rainforests in Brazil, the calathea zebrina likes warm, humid conditions that are moist. As such, you’ll see it doing its “prayer pose” when the light dims. The plant is a member of the Marantaceae family which makes it closely related to the prayer plant. In addition to its looks, don’t be surprised when you see its leaves fold up at night. Incidentally, zebrina is a latin word that means “stripes like a zebra”, which is an appropriate way of describing the plant’s foliage. And, if you turn the leaves over, you’ll see they have dark red hue to them. Its most striking feature are the light green stripes that adorned the darker green leaves. One look at it and you can quickly tell why. The calathea zebrina is commonly known as the zebra plant.

Zebra calathea