Vincent Price

Wednesday, February 21. 2007

This is the Tale of the Old Dead Man and the Cactus. It is a very scary tale, told by Vincent Price, though he is long dead. Come with me to the LA Times, and we will tell the tale to you.

Her second acquisition was more unusual: a division of Sansevieria cylindrica var. patula received in 1978 from a friend who had bought actor Vincent Price's Hollywood Hills home and its contents, including some interesting succulents....

Ooooohhh..... Scary.... What do you think happened after he bought the Old Man Price's house? Goblins appeared! Spooky things everywhere! Maybe.... Continue with us after the break.

"I'd never seen anything like it," she says of Price's sansevieria. "It had long, stiff cylindrical leaves arching fan-like off a big, fat, dark rhizome." Lewis was hooked.

Well, not so scary, maybe, but more like an article about Sansevierias.

All 70 or so species are native to the Old World. Most hail from Africa; others are from the Arabian Peninsula, Comoro Islands, India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

With so many homelands, it's no surprise that the plants' natural habitats are wide-ranging, from shade to sun, woodland to rocky cliff, sea level to high elevation, desert to tropical, arid to humid. Most are frost-tender, though, and do best indoors....

Complicating matters even more are sansevierias' chameleon-like demeanor. The leaves of some species vary radically in size, shape and color as they mature. Some types of sansevierias sprout leaves with atypical markings. The number of "new" sansevierias on the market confuses even longtime devotees of the plant....

Yet one more twist: Some species and cultivars must flower before their identities can be confirmed.

(Photo: Carlos Chavez / LAT)

Posted by cactusblog in News at 10:24

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