Sansevierias Well-Known Strangers …

When our editor asked me to do an article on sansevierias, I really thought he had flipped. No matter where you go, sansevierias are there ahead of you, and of all the well-known house plants we have, sansevieria is undoubtedly the most easily recognized.

“Who,” I said to myself, “doesn’t know all about sansevierias?” Who doesn’t? Well, I doesn’t, or didn’t, I soon found out!

Surprisingly enough, except for a few academic papers, there has been very little published about this group of plants.

On the off-chance that some of you may have just recently returned from a prolonged stay in Tibet, and thus may not be acquainted with sansevierias, let’s start where I did-at the beginning.

First, the genus belongs to the great lily family, and was named after the Prince of Sanseviero who was born in Naples in 1710.

Most of the sansevierias have been native to tropical Africa, and the genus was originally prized for the useful fibers obtained from its leaves. This gave rise to its common name of bowstring hemp, but where the common name mother-in-law’s tongue came from, I have no idea. Too, the plants are often called, perhaps only colloquially, snakeplant, although this name is more properly applied to a totally different genus. The confusion which results from one common name being applied to several unlike plants is one reason I’m not wholly in favor of using common names, but I’m most certainly in favor of having a few more common names, appropriate or not, rounded up for the genus Sansevieria. After you’ve struggled through the proper names I have lined up for you, you’ll see why!

The true type of Sansevieria, Sansevieria zeylanica, has slightly concave leaves to three feet in length, erect, sword-shaped, and wavy-edged. Colorwise, they are dark green with light green cross bands.

A similar type is Sansevieria trifasciata, also tall, but gray-green with dark green crossbands, and going on to the variety Sansevieria trifasciata Craigii, which has broad yellow marginal stripes, we find the leaf center with diffused green stripes instead of crossbanding. To further complicate matters, we find Sansevieria trifasciata Laurentii also has yellow margins, but we’re back to the basic color of the true type, dark green with light green crossbands. And as if this weren’t enough, someone gave the name (watch it, now) Sansevieria trifasciata Laurentii compacta to a plant broadly margined in yellow but basically dark green with light green mottling (instead of crossbanding, as in Sansevieria trifasciata Laurentii).

If you can look at these five plants and identify each correctly without referring to the text, you rate an A-plus for this lesson! Of course, the whole thing to remember with the tall sansevierias is that basic leaf color, margins, mottling, crossbands and longitudinal stripes are the only real identifying characteristics, since it is almost impossible to distinguish between many of the species by shape alone.

Two other sorts probably warrant mention here, though neither is any great beauty. Sansevieria Nelsonii has plain dark green leaves, and Sansevieria parva with light green banding on dark green. Although the written description of the latter is almost identical with that given for Sansevieria zeylanica, Sansevieria parva can be readily identified when seen “in the flesh” by its rather scrawny appearance.

Part II of the article covers Bird nest type sanseviera

by K Walker

Related Articles Of Interest:

• Sansevieria Bird Nest Types and Other Odd Snakeplants
• Apartment Dwellers Insurance… Sansevieria
• Sansevieria – The Snake Plant A Durable Houseplant
• Sansevieria – When You Need Tough Indoor House Plant