Imagine plants whose leaves are shaped like spearheads sized for a Goliath, clothe them in the colors of Joseph’s coat, and see them, in your mind’s eye, growing on the floor of the rain forests of Brazil and Peru. Here are caladiums, living rainbows!

We have heard children call them “elephant ears,” and the direct approach of youth perhaps comes closest of all to describing them in a few words.

Caladiums are one of my favorite plants, yet their flowering cycle seems insignificant and rarely noticed for some of us gardeners. Try to find them for yourself someday.

They look like discouraged calla lilies, never attaining enough beauty to rival the multicolored leaves among which they nestle. Caladium leaves may be pink, red, white, or green, in solid colors or mottled patterns, often with dark veins outlined against the more transparent sections of the foliage. And they are beautiful.

What a statement these plants make, whether in the ground, in a flower pot or just in a window box.

Caladiums might well be called summer house plants, for florists usually start them into growth in March and by mid-October lose their foliage and rest completely until spring. The time in which they are in active growth includes the hot summer months, when few other pot plants are available.

The rhizomes from which caladiums grow are planted in flats in a soil mixture which is mostly peat moss. They are given warm, humid conditions with temperatures ranging from 75 to 80 degrees, much like those that exists in the jungles from which their ancestors came.

After new roots have appeared, the young plants are potted separately into a lighter soil and allowed to grow larger.

I think there is no other houseplant that ranks more beautiful than well-grown caladiums. These lovely plants do not need a sunny location in which to grow well. Their leaves are very thin and delicate, and you will find that they do best of all in a spot just out of the sun, where there is an abundance of light, but no possibility of burning.

A similar situation would suit other lovely plants such as gloxinias, African violets, and tuberous-rooted begonias, one or more of which you might like to grow in company with caladiums for the variety and color they can give your window sill.

Caladiums are not grown out of doors as much as they should be. Many of us are unaware of their potential as garden plants. Most plants would be discouraged under the shade of large trees, but the caladiums are sometimes at their best, lending brilliant colors to brighten shadows.

These plants are a hungry lot and need to be fed regularly. Every two weeks, during their growing season I enrich one of their drinks with a complete house-plant fertilizer. The soil is ordinarily one-half loam and one-half peat moss.

If you cannot obtain this combination, use African violet soil mix. Its mixture is high in organic matter and is perfect for caladiums. During the growing season, caladiums are thirsty plants, so the soil should stay quite moist. It is only when they start to rest that water should be gradually withheld from them.

About six to eight months after your caladium began its growth, it tells itself to rest. No amount of water or coaxing will keep it growing any longer, so you might as well face the fact that it needs rest.

When you notice more and more leaves losing their color, water less frequently, and when they wither entirely store the plant, pot and all, in a dry place at about 50 to 60 degrees until the following spring. Repot them in the soil that was suggested, and the sleeping beauty will grow bigger and prettier another year.