Dracaena reflexa
The 'song of India' dracaena: a slow-growing, many-branched shrub or small tree with spirally arranged, narrow, often reflexed leaves. It is native to Madagascar, Mozambique and the western Indian Ocean islands. It grows from coastal bush to montane forest, with a warm, wet summer and a cooler, drier winter. It is a tough houseplant for bright, filtered light, taking warmth and moderate humidity and preferring to dry between waterings.
Where it grows wild
An upright shrub or small tree, usually 4–5 m and occasionally 6 m, which grows in forest and forest edges and in coastal vegetation on the islands and the Madagascan mainland. In forest it grows as an understory or edge plant in broken light. In the open it takes more sun.
Recorded from sea level to about 1570 m, with a median of 368 m across 386 records. It spans lowland coastal forest to mid-elevation montane forest in Madagascar and Réunion.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, unmodified.