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Sansevieria 'Hahnii' is a sport from S.trifasciata 'Laurentii' patented by W.W.Smith Jr. of New Orleans in 1941. It has
become one of the best of the cultivars for use as a houseplant. It remains compact and is tough enough to survive englect. In 'Exotica 3' Graf says: "(US patent 1941), 'Birdnest', sport of laurentii found at New Orleans in 1939, entirely different in habit, forming a low, vase-like rosette of broad, elliptic leaves spirally arranged, spreading and reflexed, dark green with paler green crossbanding, robust and freely suckering." The patent application, filed by William Walter Smith on July 18, 1940, says: "My present invention relates to an improved variety of Sansevieria, plant, the principal claim to novelty residing in its compact spiral growth. Whereas other known Sansevieria varieties grow erect from the base, with tips slightly spreading, this variety grows with the leaves tiering up one after the other in a definite spiral and with the tips widely spreading, The new variety is a sport of the variety Laurenti and was discovered by me on the property of my father, William W. Smith, owner and proprietor of the Crescent Nursery Company of New Orleans, Louisiana. The variety has been asexually reproduced both by suckers and by leaf cuttings and its characteristics have always reproduced true in both types of reproduction. This variety differs from its parent in the matter of reproducing true from leaf cuttings, inasmuch as the parent variety comes entirely green rather than with a golden edge, if leaf cuttings are used. No leaf cuttings of any other variety of Sansevieria, have ever produced any of the rosette type of plant, so far as I am able to learn. Occasionally some of the older varieties have produced rosettes from sucker cuttings. However even these do not remain true rosette types but grow into the taller types. Every specimen of the new variety has remained the true rosette type, reproducing true either from suckers or from leaf cuttings. The shape of the leaves of this new variety is quite different from that of other known varieties, the present one being much broader. The present variety may be described as having a narrow-ovate leaf with tips drawn to very short : points and arising from a narrow thin base, while other varieties have leaves that are lanceolate to linear with tips drawn to long sharp points and arising from a narrow thick base. Having thus disclosed my discovery, I claim: A new and distinct variety of Sansevieria plant substantially as shown and described, characterized particularly by its definitely flat spiral growth; its broad, short-pointed leaves with alternating metalic and green indefinite bands; and its ability to reproduce true by leaf cuttings as well as by suckers, WILLIAM WALTER SMITH, Jr. " |
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| 1979 | ||
