From the humid forests of Costa Rica and Nicaragua comes Goeppertia warszewiczii, a Calathea of considerable presence. Named for Józef Warszewicz Ritter von Rawicz, the Polish botanist who introduced it to cultivation in Berlin in the nineteenth century, this species grows to three or four feet tall and wide, making it one of the more architecturally substantial plants in the prayer plant family. Its leaves are large, deep velvety green with a feathered light green pattern radiating from the midrib, and the undersides are a rich purple covered in woolly hairs. Unlike most of its relatives, this species can flower indoors — tubular blooms that open creamy white, shift to yellow, and then blush pink.

Keep it in bright, indirect light and a peat-based mix amended with perlite for drainage. Temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity above 60 percent are non-negotiable; the leaf edges will brown and curl at anything drier. Distilled or rainwater avoids the fluoride problems that tap water introduces. It appreciates monthly feeding during spring and summer and benefits from having its broad leaves gently wiped to clear dust. Given the right conditions, the jungle velvet Calathea becomes a genuinely commanding indoor specimen — the kind of plant that makes a room feel like a place.