Identification: What i think is a Spider plant

Discussion in 'Indoor and Greenhouse Plants' started by LittleITguy, Nov 8, 2017.

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  1. LittleITguy

    LittleITguy New Member

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    My fiancee got me this plant for my office and it came with no documentation. I think its a spider plant by its linear leaves and the coloring but this one seems to be a vine style plant where as the examples of Spiders look more clustered with their leaves. Can anyone give me the scientific name? I'm also wondering if i should put it in a hanging pot as hes starting to stretch out past his pot. (see the attached images)
     

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  2. Eric La Fountaine

    Eric La Fountaine Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Maybe a wandering Jew, Tradescantia--very sparse and narrow leaves though.
     
  3. thanrose

    thanrose Active Member 10 Years

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    Likely Tradescantia spathacea. Not my favorite plant, it's planted very commonly outdoors here, but would look rather more bushy. It's one of those plants that can irritate your skin if you do any handling of it. We used to call it Rhoeo, which I think was a genus name, but it was moved to Tradescantia.
     
  4. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I would expect it to be fine in that pot for a long time. You can bang it on the desk a bit, then tip it over and let the plant come out of the pot to see if the soil looks full of roots. If you put it in too big a pot, you will have more risk of overwatering it, so it's better in the smaller pot until there are more roots than soil. You can keep taking cuttings from long branches, remove the bottom leaf and push the cutting into the soil so that the node where the removed leaf was is covered by soil (keeping in mind what @thanrose said, though I never was irritated by handling those).
     

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