Identification: A dark green oblong nest...

...Stumps me! I'm familiar with most indoor houseplants (even having had horticultural jobs); but I can't seem to come up with a name on this one....

Here's is my fullest best description:

First, it's A SLOW GROWER; leaves are dark green, normal sheen, smooth, oblong (but tapering to a rather perky point); the whole plant is under a foot tall and about 6" wide (it was a gift to a relative either in the 80s or 90s, so as I said, it grows SLOWLY); it grows upright and columnar, but the leaves group together around the central axis in a cluster or nest-like growth pattern (or even, pineapple-like). It's never produced a flowr, nor any projected stem from central cluster.

Does well in usual household warmth, dryness, lighting, etc.

Any clues? Appreciate it.

 

Bromeliad?

 

Bird's nest fern... Otherwise, I'd say Aspidistra, but it gets a lot taller than yours.

 

Thank you both for your guesses (e.g. bromeliad...BN fern...Aspidistra). I too, thought of all three possibilities, but it continues to look SO Sansievari and/or Draceanaish (the leaves are of that thin but fleshy darker solid green leathery texture and turn upward (to a point as I mentioned) in a very formal "grouping" around the central core. The reason I'm perlexed is that I cannot find any picture in any depiction of Sansievarias or Draceanas in books-- which as we know are quite common species for houseplants.

 

Does it have the rosetted form of Sansevieria aethiopica or S. hahnii?

 

I finally happened upon a picture of what I now know is the correct plant:

I isn't a Sansiveria after all; it is a Dracaena (currently D. fragrans 'Compacta'; I guess when my specimen was purchased, its old name was D. deremensis, more commonly know as Janet Craig Compacta. The reason I got fooled is that my plant failed to grow a thick stem with the growth atop it; it remained "bush-like" and small for 20+ years (as I read more of the information on it that came with the clear photo, it said that, under low light conditions, it will "fail to grow"-- my specimen was true to this quote it appears!

Well, thanks for the guess; I thought you'd like to hear about the solution to the "dark green oblong nest"!