''Chlorophytum comosum'', usually called spider plant or common spider plant due to its spider-like look, also known as spider ivy, airplane plant, ribbon plant (a name it shares with '' Dracaena sanderiana''), and hen and chickens, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

of the family

Asparagaceae Asparagaceae (), known as the asparagus family, is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, '' Asparagus officinalis''. This family includes both ...

. It is

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

and

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

but has become naturalized in other parts of the world, including

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

., search for "Chlorophytum comosum" ''Chlorophytum comosum'' is easy to grow as a

houseplant A houseplant, also known as a pot plant, potted plant, or indoor plant, is an ornamental plant cultivated indoors. for aesthetic or practical purposes. These plants are commonly found in House, homes, Office, offices, and various indoor spaces, w ...

because of its resilience, but it can be sensitive to the

fluoride Fluoride (). According to this source, is a possible pronunciation in British English. is an Inorganic chemistry, inorganic, Monatomic ion, monatomic Ion#Anions and cations, anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula (also written ), whose ...

in tap water, which commonly gives it "burnt tips". Variegated forms are the most popular.

Description

''Chlorophytum comosum'' grows to about tall, although as a hanging plant it can descend many feet. It has fleshy, tuberous roots, each about long. The long narrow leaves reach a length of and are around wide. 2006-12-09Chlorophytum07-03

Flowers are produced in a long, branched

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

, which can reach a length of up to and eventually bends downward to meet the earth. Flowers initially occur in clusters of 1–6 at intervals along the stem ( scape) of the inflorescence. Each cluster is at the base of a

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

, which ranges from in length, becoming smaller toward the end of the inflorescence. Most of the flowers that are produced initially die off, so that relatively, the inflorescences are sparsely flowered. Individual flowers are greenish-white, borne on stalks ( pedicels) some long. Each flower has six triply veined

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s that are long and slightly hooded or boat-shaped at their tips. The

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s consist of a

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by most types of flowers of seed plants for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced Gametophyte#Heterospory, microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm ...

-producing anther about long with a filament of similar length or slightly longer. The central

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

is long. Seeds are produced in a capsule, long, on stalks (pedicels) that lengthen to up to . The inflorescences carry not only flowers but also vegetative plantlets at the tips of their branches, which eventually droop and touch the soil, developing adventitious roots. The stems (scapes) of the inflorescence are called "

stolons In biology, a stolon ( from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as a runner, is a horizontal connection between parts of an organism. It may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal stolons ar ...

" in some sources, but this term is more correctly used for stems that do not bear flowers and have roots at the nodes.

Taxonomy

The first formal description of ''Chlorophytum comosum'' was by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Peter Thunberg Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Sweden, Swedish Natural history, naturalist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus ...

as ''Anthericum comosum'' in the 1794 volume of ''Prodromus Plantarum Capensium'', Thunberg's work on the plants of South Africa.Thunberg, Carl Peter. 1794
''Prodromus Plantarum Capensium''.
p. 63. The species was subsequently moved to a number of different genera, including ''Phalangium'', '' Caesia'', ''Hartwegia'' Nees, and ''Hollia'', before receiving its current placement in ''Chlorophytum'' by Jacques in 1862. The species has been confused with ''Chlorophytum capense'' (L.) Voss by some authors, but this is a different species.

Intra-specific variation

There are three described varieties of the species: the autonym ''C. comosum'' var. ''comosum'' has strap-shaped narrow leaves and is found along forest margins; ''C. comosum'' var. ''bipindense'' has broader, petiolate leaves with stripes on the underside and the inflorescences are 2–3 times the length of the leaves; and ''C. comosum'' var. ''sparsiflorum'' also has broader leaves that narrow to the base, and usually lacks a petiole and the striping on the underside of the leaf and the inflorescences are up to two times the length of the leaves. The latter two are rainforest-dwelling taxa that had been described earlier as separate species, but botanists Axel Dalberg Poulsen and Inger Nordal reduced the taxa to varieties of ''C. comosum'' in 2005.Poulsen, AD, and I Nordal. 2005. A phenetic analysis and revision of Guineo-Congolean rainforest taxa of ''Chlorophytum'' (Anthericaceae). ''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'', 148: 1-20. Delimitation of species boundaries within the genus ''Chlorophytum'' is reported to be difficult, possibly because of several evolutionary radiations into forest environments that led to morphological aspects that are too similar to reliably distinguish separate species. The evidence given to support this is the widespread distribution of most taxa in the genus and poor seed dispersal, leading to the conclusion of deeper evolutionary divergence among the taxa. Chlorophytum comosum 01

The three described varieties in ''C. comosum'' could be an example of this

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

of leaf shape among the forest-dwelling varieties from species of disparate origin, leading to the species ''C. comosum'' being

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

, instead of the traditional view of morphological divergence among the varieties within the species with the assumption of a common origin (

monophyly In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent comm ...

). The widespread ''C. comosum'' var. ''comosum'' has slender, near linear leaves that lack a petiole similar to plants found in cultivation and is only found growing at the margins of the rainforest. The two other varieties, ''C. comosum'' var. ''sparsiflorum'' and ''C. comosum'' var. ''bipindense'', possess petioles and have broader leaves necessary for collecting more light in the shady Guineo-Congolean rainforest. A study published in 2005 used 16 morphological characters and was unable to delimit species boundaries among these three taxa, so they were relegated to varietal status. A follow-up study published in 2008 provided preliminary evidence from

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

plastid A plastid is a membrane-bound organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of plants, algae, and some other eukaryotic organisms. Plastids are considered to be intracellular endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. Examples of plastids include chloroplasts ...

and nuclear DNA sequences that established samples from disparate collections sites identified as ''C. comosum'' were

.Bjorå, CS, A Hemp, G Hoell, and I Nordal. 2008. A taxonomic and ecological analysis of two forest ''Chlorophytum'' taxa (Anthericaceae) on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. ''Plant Systematics and Evolution'', 274: 243-253.

Distribution

''Chlorophytum comosum'' has a widespread native distribution in Africa, being native to six of the ten

World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) is a biogeographical system developed by the international Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic D ...

regions of Africa (West Tropical Africa, West-Central Tropical Africa, Northeast Tropical Africa, East Tropical Africa, South Tropical Africa, and Southern Africa).

Cultivation

''Chlorophytum comosum'' is a popular

. The cultivars with all-green leaves forms only a small proportion of plants sold. More common are two variegated cultivars: * ''C. comosum'' 'Vittatum' has mid-green leaves with a broad central white stripe. It is often sold in hanging baskets to display the

plantlet A plantlet is a young or small plant, produced on the leaf margins or the aerial stems of another plant."Plantlet", Merriam-Webster' Many plants such as Chlorophytum comosum, spider plants naturally create stolons with plantlets on the ends as ...

s. The long stems are white. There is also a "curly" version with this type of striping and compact size. * ''C. comosum'' 'Variegatum' has darker green leaves with white margins. It is generally smaller than the previous cultivar. The long stems are green. Both cultivars have gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

(confirmed 2017). In 2021, 17 other cultivars were listed, including 'Bonnie', 'Green Bonnie' and 'Hawaiian'.

Propagation

Propagating ''Chlorophytum comosum'' commonly occurs through potting the plantlets, informally referred to as 'spiderettes', or 'pups', directly into potting soil, or pumice, attached to the main plant or cutting the running stems and then potting them. Spider plants are easy to grow, being able to thrive in a wide range of conditions. They will tolerate temperatures down to , but grow best at temperatures between and . Plants can be damaged by high

boron Boron is a chemical element; it has symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the boron group it has three ...

levels.

Toxicity and effects on pets

Spider plants are non-toxic to humans and pets, and are considered edible.

Air purification

The NASA Clean Air Study suggested that air plants were effective at removing common household air toxins

formaldehyde Formaldehyde ( , ) (systematic name methanal) is an organic compound with the chemical formula and structure , more precisely . The compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde. It is stored as ...

and

xylene In organic chemistry, xylene or xylol (; IUPAC name: dimethylbenzene) are any of three organic compounds with the formula . They are derived from the substitution of two hydrogen atoms with methyl groups in a benzene ring; which hydrogens are su ...

; however, these results are not applicable to typical buildings, where outdoor-to-indoor air exchange already removes volatile organic compounds ( VOCs) at a rate that could only be matched by the placement of 10–1000 plants/m of a building's floor space. The results also failed to replicate in future studies, with a 2014 review stating that: In the laboratory settings uses in the Clean Air Study, spider plants were shown to reduce formaldehyde pollution, and approximately 70 plants would neutralize the formaldehyde released by materials in a representative (c. ) energy-efficient house, assuming each plant occupies a pot. Stuartxchange Philippine Alternative Medicine http://www.stuartxchange.org/SpiderPlant.html#:~:text=Roots%20are%20reportedly%20edible.&text=No%20reported%20folkloric%20use%20in%20the%20Philippines.&text=In%20Chinese%20traditional%20medicine%2C%20used,treating%20bronchitis%2C%20fractures%20and%20burns. Retrieved at 11.09 on Saturday 10/8/24.

Edibility

The tuberous roots are reportedly edible (whether raw or cooked unstated) although mild

laxative Laxatives, purgatives, or aperients are substances that loosen stools and increase bowel movements. They are used to treat and prevent constipation. Laxatives vary as to how they work and the side effects they may have. Certain stimulant, lubri ...

effects are claimed by the

Nguni people The Nguni people are an ethnolinguistic group of Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic groups native to Southern Africa where they form the single largest ethnolinguistic community. Predecessors of Nguni people migrated from Central Africa into Southern A ...

of its native

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1164349 Agavoideae Flora of West Tropical Africa Flora of West-Central Tropical Africa Flora of Northeast Tropical Africa Flora of East Tropical Africa Flora of South Tropical Africa Flora of Southern Africa Garden plants of Africa House plants Plants described in 1794 Taxa named by Carl Peter Thunberg Low light plants

Chlorophytum comosum ''Chlorophytum comosum'', usually called spider plant or common spider plant due to its spider-like look, also known as spider ivy, airplane plant, ribbon plant (a name it shares with ''Dracaena sanderiana''), and hen and chickens, is a species o ...