Somewhere in a cloud forest above Chiriquí, a mature Anthurium wendlingeri hangs from a mossy branch with its leaves trailing a meter below the point of attachment — strap-shaped, dark green, heavily quilted, swaying in the updraft. The spadix below it corkscrews like a telephone cord left in the sun. Nothing about it looks like the red-spathed florist anthuriums sold in airport gift shops. It looks, if anything, like a plant from a different genus entirely, one that evolved specifically to make growers nervous.
That nervousness is not entirely unfounded. The pendant strap-leaf anthuriums — a loose collector shorthand for wendlingeri, decorosum, pendulifolium, and their kin — carry a reputation for sulking, yellowing, and slowly collapsing the moment humidity drops below a threshold most houses never reach. That reputation is partly deserved and partly the residue of bad early advice. What follows is an attempt to separate the real requirements from the mythology, and to make a case that these plants, properly sited, are among the most singular things you can grow.