houseplant

The other day when I was at the "strange" Home Depot (renting the concrete saw), I took some time to scope out their garden center. For the most part this was entirely depressing, as they didn't even have a dedicated room for the indoor plants like my local HD does -- they just had them off in one corner of the main store. The cactus and other succulents were pretty much growing in darkness. What a shame! 

I did find something interesting though: This succulent in a hanging basket.

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The texture of it caught my eye first, and its wonderful green color didn't hurt either:

One disadvantage of having the plants out in the main store is that I couldn't just investigate in peace -- as soon as I took the basket down and started taking photos a helpful (?) employee asked if I needed any help. Of course I said "no thanks, I'm fine", but what I should have said was: "yes, thank you. What species is this, and what part of the world does it come from?"

Because the plant tag was present, but extremely unhelpful:

Ah, it's a "houseplant". Thanks, that's very helpful! There are a few nuggets of truth on this tag though:

• This is "living" (not plastic!)
• It produces oxygen (hey, I like oxygen!) 
• And it needs light (unlike the other succulents growing on the dark shelves I guess).

So I'm out of luck on getting help with the ID there. I had a feeling that I saw a plant like this in one of Gerhard's posts on Bamboo, Succulents, and More, but I'm not sure how to find it.

I resorted to observation then and photos, hoping I could get an ID later. Looking closely at the interior of the plant, it appears that there may be a second type of plant mixed in:

The majority of the plant was smooth and spineless, but in there, plenty of spines.

I'm pretty sure I determined that the prickly parts were connected to the smooth parts, but now I can't be certain. If they are, does this mean that the entire plant will eventually become prickly? Or is this really two separate plants?

I checked another specimen they had and it too had the prickly interior, so I'm thinking it's how this plant is -- there's not a second type of plant in there. If that's so, then this thing will become quite dangerous in almost no time... and I'm not sure if I can handle that. (I had a cactus that I was allergic to once -- just brushing against its sharp spines would cause much itching and swelling. I got rid of that plant after several years.)

This is such a pretty plant though! Interesting too, and unique. I'm hoping for an ID in the comments below so I can do a bit more research.

Then maybe I'll stop back in the next time I'm in that part of town and pick up a cool new succulent!

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