Identification Help: A dark green oblong nest...

mstr greenjeans · #1 April 7th, 2006, 03:30 PM

...Stumps me! I'm familiar with most indoor houseplants (even having had horticultural jobs); but I can't seem to come up with a name on this one....

Here's is my fullest best description:

First, it's A SLOW GROWER; leaves are dark green, normal sheen, smooth, oblong (but tapering to a rather perky point); the whole plant is under a foot tall and about 6" wide (it was a gift to a relative either in the 80s or 90s, so as I said, it grows SLOWLY); it grows upright and columnar, but the leaves group together around the central axis in a cluster or nest-like growth pattern (or even, pineapple-like). It's never produced a flowr, nor any projected stem from central cluster.

Does well in usual household warmth, dryness, lighting, etc.

Any clues? Appreciate it.

**jimmyq** · #2 April 7th, 2006, 03:47 PM

Bromeliad?

**Rima** · #3 April 7th, 2006, 04:12 PM

Bird's nest fern... Otherwise, I'd say Aspidistra, but it gets a lot taller than yours.

mstr greenjeans · #4 April 11th, 2006, 12:07 PM

Thank you both for your guesses (e.g. bromeliad...BN fern...Aspidistra). I too, thought of all three possibilities, but it continues to look SO Sansievari and/or Draceanaish (the leaves are of that thin but fleshy darker solid green leathery texture and turn upward (to a point as I mentioned) in a very formal "grouping" around the central core. The reason I'm perlexed is that I cannot find any picture in any depiction of Sansievarias or Draceanas in books-- which as we know are quite common species for houseplants.

**Junglekeeper** · #5 April 11th, 2006, 03:42 PM

Does it have the rosetted form of Sansevieria aethiopica or S. hahnii?

mstr greenjeans · #6 April 13th, 2006, 01:08 PM

I finally happened upon a picture of what I now know is the correct plant:

I isn't a Sansiveria after all; it is a Dracaena (currently D. fragrans 'Compacta'; I guess when my specimen was purchased, its old name was D. deremensis, more commonly know as Janet Craig Compacta. The reason I got fooled is that my plant failed to grow a thick stem with the growth atop it; it remained "bush-like" and small for 20+ years (as I read more of the information on it that came with the clear photo, it said that, under low light conditions, it will "fail to grow"-- my specimen was true to this quote it appears!

Well, thanks for the guess; I thought you'd like to hear about the solution to the "dark green oblong nest"!