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There are a lot of quite different plants that go under the name of S.zeylanica and I have no confidence in
any of them. Notwithstanding - this is a good small pot plant. In 'The Splendid Sansevieria' Juan hahinian says: "Stemless, with a creeping rootstock to 12 mm (½ in) in diameter. Leaves 10- 16 or more, 60 cm (24 in) long, 3 cm ( I ¼ in) wide, curved backwards. Leaves , slightly folded inward, dark green marked by regular crossbanding of lighter grayish-green, a pattern reminiscent of that of S. trifasciata. Leaves somewhat stiff and quite flexible, strap-like, narrowing to the tip into a soft subulate point. Edges of the leaves green, sometimes with a very thin whitish border, only evident at closer range. Leaves narrow only slightly down to the bottom, thus presenting no petiole. The adaxial side of the leaves present very few dark longitudinal lines , long but interrupted. The abaxial side presents a shallow keel and is marked by several longitudinal impressed and continuous lines, regularly spaced. The flowering of this species, which appears to be quite infrequent in cultivation, is in the form of a spike-like raceme. The epithet means ceylonese in Latin. This plant comes from India, not Ceylon, the former name of Sri-Lanka." Plants of the World online says: "The native range of this species is S. India, Sri Lanka. It is a rhizomatous geophyte and grows primarily in the seasonally dry tropical biome." Hermine Stover says: "A very rare plant. The name is not rare - lots of Sansevierias are so labeled. But they are not properly named. Brown doesn’t believe he saw it. I have some infants which could be the real thing - they came from the right place. Anyway, it is supposed to have thick strap-shaped 18”-30” x 1” leaves which are rounded and have darker green parallel lines on the backs, plus alternating bands of green and lighter green crosswise on the leaf face, 5-11 leaves per growth. (Ceylon)." |
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| 14th September 2007 | ||
