Prayer Plant Care: How to Stop Brown Tips

Last updated September 30, 2026

Every evening the prayer plant (Maranta leuconeura) lifts its leaves upright, like hands pressed together, and every morning it lays them flat again. Throw in red veins, lime-green feathering and dark blotches, and you can see why so many people bring one home. You can also see why so many of them end up with crispy brown edges a month later. The prayer plant isn’t hard. It just has firm opinions about water and air.

Why prayer plant leaves move at night

The movement has a name: nyctinasty. At the base of each leaf blade sits a small swollen joint called a pulvinus. As the light fades, cells in the pulvinus shift their water pressure and lift the leaf upright. When light comes back, the leaf lowers again. It’s a normal daily rhythm, not stress, and honestly it’s half the fun of owning one.

Because the rhythm follows light, a plant under lamps that stay on late, or in a spot that’s too bright all day, may stop folding properly. If yours has quit “praying”, check its light cycle before you worry about anything else.

Is it a Maranta or a Calathea?

Strictly speaking, “prayer plant” means Maranta. The name gets borrowed by its relatives in the arrowroot family (Marantaceae), especially calatheas (most now reclassified as Goeppertia), stromanthes and ctenanthes, which also fold their leaves at night. This guide covers true marantas, but here’s how the two you’re most likely to meet compare.

	Maranta (prayer plant)	Calathea
Growth habit	Low, spreading, trails over the pot edge	Upright clumps of leaves on long stalks
Size	About 12 in tall, 12–18 in wide	Often 1–3 ft tall
Fussiness	Moderate	Higher, especially about humidity
Propagation	Stem cuttings root easily	Division only
Pets	Non-toxic	Non-toxic

The marantas you’ll see for sale are mostly these four:

• Red prayer plant (var. erythroneura, sold as ‘Fascinator’, herringbone or tricolor): dark green leaves, bright red herringbone veins and a lime-green feathered center. The most common by far.
• ‘Lemon Lime’: bright green with yellow-green veining and no red.
• Rabbit’s foot or rabbit tracks (var. kerchoveana): pale green leaves with dark brown blotches like footprints.
• Black prayer plant (‘Massangeana’): nearly black-green leaves, silvery veins, purple underside.

In the wild, Maranta leuconeura grows low on the forest floor in Brazil, in shade, warmth and damp air. Keep that picture in mind and the rest of its care makes sense.

The prayer plant care checklist

Watering: evenly moist, and the water itself matters

This is where the prayer plant parts ways with the drought-tolerant plants many of us start with. Marantas have fine, shallow roots and don’t store much water, so the soil needs to stay lightly moist. Let a pot dry out completely and you’ll get curled leaves and crispy edges. Keep it constantly wet and you’ll get yellow leaves and root rot. You’re aiming for the middle.

Just as important is what you pour in. Prayer plants react badly to the fluoride, chlorine and dissolved minerals in a lot of city tap water. Those build up in the soil and burn the tips and edges. If your plant keeps browning even though humidity and watering look fine, switch to filtered, distilled or collected rainwater. Leaving tap water out overnight lets some chlorine escape, but it doesn’t remove fluoride, chloramine or minerals. Use it at room temperature; cold water can shock the roots.

1. Water evenly over the soil until it runs from the drainage hole.
2. Let the pot drain completely, then empty the saucer.
3. Every few months, flush the pot with a generous amount of distilled or rainwater to rinse out built-up salts.

Raising humidity: what works and what doesn’t

A cheap digital hygrometer will tell you your real humidity, and it’s usually lower than people think. Here’s how the common fixes stack up.

Method	How much it helps	Verdict
Humidifier near the plant	A lot, and consistently	The best option by a wide margin
Grouping plants together	A little	Worth doing anyway
A bright bathroom or kitchen	Moderate	Good if the light is right
Pebble tray	Slight, very local	Helps a bit; keep the pot above the water
Misting	Only for minutes	Skip it; wet leaves invite fungal spots

Fixing the big three: brown tips, curling and yellow leaves

Brown, crispy tips and edges

This is the classic prayer plant complaint, and there’s usually more than one cause at once. Work through them in order: humidity (is it under 50%?), water quality (hard or fluoridated tap water?), watering (is the soil drying out completely?), then fertilizer (are you feeding too strongly?). Brown areas won’t turn green again, so trim them with clean scissors, following the leaf’s natural shape, and judge your progress by the new leaves.

Leaves curling inward

Prayer plant leaves roll up to save water. If the soil is dry, water thoroughly. If it’s moist, the likely culprit is dry air or cold; move the plant away from vents and windows and raise the humidity. Don’t confuse this with the normal evening fold, which happens at the leaf joint rather than along the leaf.

Yellow leaves

One or two yellowing leaves at the base of an otherwise healthy plant is just aging. Widespread yellowing, especially with soggy soil, means overwatering. Let the top inch dry out before you water again and check that the pot drains freely. If the stems at soil level are soft or dark and the soil smells sour, look for root rot: unpot, cut away mushy roots, and repot in fresh mix.

Other symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Faded, bleached colors	Too much direct light	Move to softer, indirect light
Long, bare, leggy stems	Too little light, or age	More light; prune above a node
Leaves not folding at night	Irregular light cycle or too much light	Keep a normal day-night pattern
Fine webbing, speckled leaves	Spider mites	Shower the plant; insecticidal soap weekly; raise humidity
Wilting with wet soil	Root rot	Unpot, remove rotten roots, repot

Spider mites are the prayer plant’s most common pest, and they love dry winter air. Look for fine webbing under the leaves and tiny pale speckles. Rinse the whole plant in the shower, treat with insecticidal soap every five to seven days until they’re gone, and raise the humidity so they don’t come back. Mealybugs, thrips and fungus gnats turn up now and then too.

Pruning, repotting and flowers

Prayer plants grow at a moderate pace in warm months, spreading low and then trailing over the edge of the pot, which makes them lovely in hanging baskets. If yours gets long and sparse, prune in spring or summer: cut just above a leaf node (the little joint where a leaf meets the stem) and it’ll push new growth from below the cut. Keep those trimmings; they’re your next plants.

Repot every one to two years in spring, when roots circle the pot or poke out of the drainage hole, or when the soil dries out within a couple of days. Go up just an inch or two and keep the pot shallow.

Healthy marantas sometimes send up small white or pale lavender flowers on thin stalks. They’re pretty but minor; pinch them off if you’d rather the plant put its energy into leaves. In fall and winter growth slows, so water a little less, stop feeding, and keep a closer eye on humidity.

How to root prayer plant cuttings

Stem cuttings in water usually root in two to four weeks, and in soil in three to five. You can also divide a big plant when you repot.

To divide instead, tease the root ball apart into two or three sections at repotting time, each with its own roots and several stems. Pot them up, water well and keep the humidity high. A week or two of drooping is normal.

Prayer plant FAQs

Why do prayer plant leaves close at night?

They fold up in the evening and open in the morning through a daily rhythm called nyctinasty. A joint at the base of each leaf changes its internal water pressure in response to light. It’s completely normal and a sign of a healthy plant.

How often should I water a prayer plant?

When the top inch of soil feels dry: often about once a week in spring and summer, and every 10 to 14 days in winter. Keep the soil lightly moist, never soggy, and don’t let it dry out completely.

Why are the tips of my prayer plant turning brown?

Usually low humidity, minerals and fluoride in tap water, underwatering, or too much fertilizer. Raise humidity above 50%, switch to filtered, distilled or rainwater, and keep the soil evenly moist.

Is a prayer plant toxic to cats?

No. The ASPCA lists the prayer plant as non-toxic to cats, dogs and horses.

Can prayer plants grow in low light?

They put up with medium and fairly low light better than many colorful houseplants, but they’ll grow slowly, get leggy and lose some color. Bright, indirect light without direct sun gives the best results.

More plants for a bright, humid spot

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