Chlorophytum is a genus of around 150 species found mainly in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is considered by some to belong to the Anthericaceae family but the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II, 2003 suggests that family be included in the Agavaceae family or optionally in the Asparagaceae family. Plants are perennial with stiff or swollen roots. Rhizomes are often short and inconspicuous, but sometimes thick and elongate. Leaves are mostly in a rosette or in two ranks. The inflorescence is a raceme and the white flowers have jointed pedicels. Chlorophytum comosum, a native of South Africa known as the Spider Plant is a very popular houseplant.
Chlorophytum bowkeri is found in damp grassland from the Eastern Cape to Zimbabwe. It grows to 1 m tall, often forming colonies. Leaves are channeled and lanceolate and the white short lived flowers in small clusters are in an unbranched raceme. Photos taken in the Eastern Cape January 2010 by Mary Sue Ittner illustrate the leaves, flowers, seed pods and bracts.
Chlorophytum comosum is native to southern and tropical Africa. Photos taken January 2010 at Glen Avon by Mary Sue Ittner of a plant growing in the rocks.
Chlorophytum saundersiae syn. Anthericum saundersiae is a native of the Eastern Cape of South Africa and Swaziland, grows on the coastal forest floor and in grassland. Photo from Alessandro Marinello of a plants grown from seed from Silverhill Seeds and blooming in about a year from seed.
Chlorophytum undulatum is a rhizomatous geophyte to 50 cm., with slender roots sometimes with short tubers. Leaves are linear or lanceolate, usually in a rosette, straight or crisped. Flowers are white with dark keels in an unbranched raceme. It grows on clay flats and slopes and in rocky places from Namaqualand to the Karoo and Stellenbosch, flowering July to October. Photos taken of what I believe is this species in the BokkeveldPlateau, in the Cederberg area of the northwest Cape, and near Calvinia, September 2006.
