The most popular variegated plant for house culture is the variegated screw pine (Pandanus Veitchii). The leaves grow two to three feet long, one and one-half to two inches broad. They are light shiny green with broad pure white stripes and arch gracefully. Both the edges and the midrib of the leaf are thick, and set with spines.
When small, this plant is very useful in fern dishes as a center piece. To be successful with this in the house, one must get plants which have been hardened off. Soft, sappy specimens are very apt to rot. Give screw pine a rich but well-drained soil and plenty of water, but do not over water. As the roots are rather large and fleshy, the soil must not be packed around them too tightly or their growth will be restricted.
As the plant suckers freely, new ones can easily be made by removing the suckers and treating them as cuttings. There is another variegated pandanus, P. Sanderi, in which the stripes instead of white are yellow, and during the winter months the new growth in the center of the plant is a deep, golden hue.
Not as pretty, but just as hardy is the ordinary screw pine (Pandanus utilis). This is a stronger grower than Veitchii. I have seen specimens twenty feet high in greenhouses. The leaves are produced in a spiral, from which it gets its name “screw” pin. The leaves are light green in color and the edges and mid-rib are set with spines as in Veitchii. If you cannot get Veitchii, get this one.
One curious thing about the pandanuses is the stilted effect they give. This is particularly true of utilis. When the plant begins to attain a larger size it produces from the stems near the ground large thick roots which immediately penetrate the soil.
So many of these are made that the plants look as if they were standing on stilts. All the pandanuses are more or less subject to “spot,” which is caused by small insects burrowing under the epidermis of the leaf. There seems to be no remedy for this, so if your plant becomes badly infested, you can choose to throw it away. If there are only one or two spots, cut off the infected leaves but do not compost them. Keep the plant dry and water the soil sparingly. Over watering seems to induce insect attacks.