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Chlorophytum comosum 'Vittatum' (Variegated Spider Plant) - A 1 to 2 foot tall and spreading wide evergreen perennial with up to foot long slender dark green arching leaves that arise from a central crown anchored by 2- to 4-inch-long fleshy tuberous roots. The leaves on this cultivar have broad creamy white stripes running longitudinally through their middle. Small greenish-white star-shaped flowers held in few flowered clusters, typically abundant in summer months, are held sparsely along 2- to 3-foot-long arching pale yellow branched scape of the inflorescence that bends back over to the ground. The flowers are replaced by vegetative leafy buds (propagules or plantlets) that root when they reach the ground, allowing the plant to spread. Occasionally these plantlet laden stems are called "stolons" but they properly are the inflorescence scape of the plant, which otherwise has a clump forming in habit.
Plant in a bright shaded area that only might get direct sun in the morning or late in the afternoon and irrigate occasionally to infrequently - in these shaded conditions this plant is surprisingly drought tolerant and is cold hardy to around 25° F. Keep an eye out for scale insects that are sometimes found in the leaf crown and on the inflorescences particularly when grown indoors. This is a great easy to care for plant for use as a solid and slowly spreading groundcover in bright shaded areas in our near frost-free climate. It also makes for a very nice container or hanging basket plant for use indoors and out with the decorative trailing plantlet bearing inflorescences often trailing down several feet, which gives this plant is most commonly used name of spider plant.
Chlorophytum comosum is but one of about 38 Chlorophytum species in South Africa and is the species with the most widespread natural distribution, growing at the margins of the rainforest from west and northeast tropical Africa south to South Africa and it has also become naturalized in other subtropical parts of the world. It was first described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg as Anthericum comosum in the 1794 but combined with other species in Chlorophytum by the French botanist and gardener Henri Antoine Jacques in 1862. The name of the genus comes from the Greek derived New Latin words 'chloro' meaning "green" and 'phytum' meaning plant and the specific epithet means "hair" in reference to the plants tufted habit. Other common names include Airplane Plant, Ribbon Plant and Spider Ivy. The cultivar 'Vittatum' is distinguished by having its green leaves with variegated white stripes in the center of the leaf while the similar cultivar 'Variegatum' has its variegation along the leaf margins. The variegated spider plants are among the most common of the house plants and often 'Vittatum' is incorrectly identified as 'Variegatum'.
Information displayed on this page about Chlorophytum comosum 'Vittatum' is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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