If grown in bright enough light this plant can produce a 3 foot spike-like raceme of pink-budded white flowers. This plant is a great house plant in bright light but can be grown in light shade or full sun if brought indoors during cool and wet weather. Plants grown with too little light will have leaves that splay outward and are not as stout. Plant in a well-drained mix and keep fairly dry, especially in winter months. This plant can go weeks between watering (3 week irrigation intervals are suggested); the one thing that usually kills a Sansevieria is overwatering.

Sansevieria cylindrica was originally described from material collected in Angola, but also grows in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The name for the genus was originally Sanseverinia as named by the Italian botanist Vincenzo Petagna in honor of his patron, Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, the Count of Chiaromonte (1724-1771), but the name was altered for unknown reasons by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg, possibly influenced by the name of Raimondo di Sangro (1710–1771), prince of San Severo in Italy. The specific epithet is in reference to this plant's cylindrical leaves. This species raised quite a stir when a Dutch marketing group released large quantities of robust greenhouse grown plants into the US market in 2005 under the name "Skyline". This name was contrived for a standard form of Sansevieria cylindrica and was the result of a Dutch national newspaper contest and this name actually has no real botanical validity. In 2004 the plant was proclaimed by FloraHolland to be the most promising novelty of the year and it received the winner of the 2006 FloraHolland Awards for the "most successful market introduction" in the category of indoor plants. There are claims that the "Skyline" form is more robust and paler than the typical Sansevieria cylindrica, but most speculate that this could be caused by greenhouse conditions and abundant fertilizer. As the name Skyline is not a valid cultivar name, we have added it to the common name already used for this plant (Spear Sansevieria) to come up with the name "Skyline Spear Sansevieria".

Long placed in the Agavaceae, the Dracaenaceae and by some in the Ruscaceae families, Sansevieria was most recently placed in the subfamily Nolinoideae within the Asparagaceae family. Molecular phylogenetic studies have persuaded some to include Sansevieria in the genus Dracaena, which would make this plants name Dracaena cylindrica, were it not for the existence of a plant already so named (now a synonym for Dracaena bicolor Hook.) so this species could not use its existing epithet and is now called Dracaena angolensis by those accepting this merger of Sansevieria into Dracaena. Because of considerable disagreement over this merger, the long-standing use of its old name, and so not to cause our own and customer confusion, we continue to list this plant as a species of Sansevieria. A very attractive dwarf form of this species is sold as Sansevieria cylindrica var. patula 'Boncel'. 

The information about Sansevieria cylindrica displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.