Don't laugh at me...
 

But is this an orchid?
This nursery gets the occasional oddball orchid in so I keep a watch out.

Two of these plants came in... oh.... a month ago.
I stare at them every time wondering if it's an orchid or a house plant.
I've just assumed they were some sort of spider plant.

But today I saw the roots and thought.
Gosh. It could be. But it could also not be.
So I'm finally asking.
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I'd say a spider plant. I haven't seen one in a while but....my guess.

in South Africa we call this a hen and chickens plant - because of the plantlets that develop from runners. In the Northern Hemisphere its called a spider plant.

The scientific name is Chlorophytum comosum. You have the "plain" version - it usually has variegated foliage.

Oh I didn't buy it.
I was just wondering.

These are generally sold as garden plants here so seeing one like that in the greenhouse threw me off.
The ones outside are alot darker too.
Thanks guys!

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I think it's what I would call a spider plant as well, those have plantlets on runners, like I see in the first picture.

I've just checked and Chlorophytum comosum is the name scientific name of the one I know as well.

The ones my mum had when I was a kid had variegated leaves, but were otherwise very similar. She used to have a decorative double layer hanging basket hanging from a hook at the edge of the living room. She had spider plants in both levels both with lots of plantlets all ways hanging down over the sides.

Hen and Chicks are different. They are in the tight rosetta form and stay quite low and flat to the ground.

This does look like a spider plant (common trade name), but I have never seen plain green one like this. They usually have beautiful white or cream white variegations.

Don't laugh at me...
 

We have two varieties of spider plants--one is variegated and the other is all green. Back when I was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley I was advised to grow these plants in bright lights as they made perfect natural air freshners. A friend of mine created a macrame plant hanger.

Hens and Chicks as we call them in the US, are a small succulent plant, otherwise known as Sempervivum. I have a variety of these growing in my garden as ground cover. I think they are native to Europe?

It is amazing how similar some plants look to orchids. I thought about starting a thread about that once. :0

Very true.

The only way to be sure (besides DNA testing) is to examine the flower. Only the orchid family has a fused column with both male and female parts together in one structure. Other plants' flowers have separate pistils (the female parts) and stamen (the male parts).

Oh well. Now I'm laughing at me.
In my head spider plant is a highly invasive garden plant that's either variegated or dark dark olive green.
Seeing it like this... really threw me

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