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Cordyline is a genus of about 24 woody, palm-like or shrub-like plants from the Asparagus family, native to the western Pacific, New Zealand, eastern Australia and one species in South America. Commonly grown members include C. australis (cabbage tree) and C. fruticosa (ti plant), which need bright light and well-drained soil.
Cordyline is a genus of about 24 species of woody monocotyledonous flowering plants in family Asparagaceae, subfamily Lomandroideae. The subfamily has previously been treated as a separate family Laxmanniaceae, or Lomandraceae. Other authors have placed the genus in the Agavaceae (now Agavoideae). Cordyline is native to the western Pacific Ocean region, from New Zealand, eastern Australia, southeastern Asia and Polynesia, with one species found in southeastern South America.
The name Cordyline comes from the Greek word kordyle, meaning "club," a reference to the enlarged underground stems or rhizomes.
Members of the group are often grown as ornamental plants - notably C. australis and C. fruticosa. Many species have been used as a foodstuff and medicine, for additional details on these and other uses see the article on C. australis. The rhizome was roasted in an hāngī (earth oven) by Māori to extract sugar.
In the highlands of Papua New Guinea. leaves of Cordyline and other plants are tied to sticks to mark taboo areas where pandanus language must be spoken during karuka harvest.
Cabbage tree · Palm lily · Tiplant · Giant palm-lily · Dwarf Palm Lily · Broad Leaved Palm Lily · Red Palm Liliy · Narrow Leaf Palm Lily
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cordyline by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
