Cordyline fruticosa
(ti plant)

Preferred Scientific Name

• Cordyline fruticosa (L.) A. Chev. (1919)

Preferred Common Name

• ti plant

Other Scientific Names

• Asparagus fruticosa L. (1767)
• Cordyline terminalis (L.) Kunth
• Cordyline ti Schott (1828)

International Common Names

• English: bongbush; cabbage palm; kiwi; palm lily; ti-palm
• Spanish: vara de San José (Spain)
• French: cordyline a fleurs terminales; dragonnier de Chine

Local Common Names

• Germany: Strauchige Keulenlilie
• UK: good luck plant; tree of kings

EPPO code

• CDLFR (Cordyline terminalis)

• Domain: Eukaryota
•     Kingdom: Plantae
•         Phylum: Spermatophyta
•             Subphylum: Angiospermae
•                 Class: Monocotyledonae
•                     Order: Liliales
•                         Family: Agavaceae
•                             Genus: Cordyline
•                                 Species: Cordyline fruticosa

Cordyline fruticosa is one of about 15 species in the genus Cordyline, which is indigenous to the south-west Pacific (1 sp), Australia (7 spp), Norfolk Island (1 sp), New Zealand (5 spp) and South America (1 sp). The genus was first described by Rumpf (1653) as Terminalis and later as Cordyline by Robert Brown in Prodromus (1810). The genus Cordyline has been allied to many Monocotyledon Families, notably Asparagaceae, Liliaceae, Agavaceae, Dracaenaceae, Asteliaceae, Lomandraceae and, since DNA analysis, Laxmanniaceae. There is a closely related genus, Cohnia, with at least 4 spp in Mascarene and New Caledonia that is sometimes classified in Cordyline. 

This species was named by Linnaeus as Convallaria fruticosa in 1754, as Asparagus fruticosa in 1767 and also as Dracaena terminalis in 1767. It was named Cordyline ti by Schott in 1828 and finally as Cordylinefruticosa by Chevalier in 1919. Many other synonyms have been applied to it in the genera Cordyline, Dracaena and Taetsia (The Plant List, 2013).It is still commonly referred to as C. terminalis (L.) Kunth, although the Plant List indicates this name is strictly speaking invalid.

C. fruticosa is a monocotyledon with secondary thickening in the stems and rhizomes (Simpson, 2000). This enables the plant to grow to 3-4 m tall with cane-like ‘trunks’ that occasionally fork. The stem bears a fan-shaped cluster of leaves at the tip. Each leaf blade is about 0.5 m long on a stalk that is somewhat shorter. The blade is broadly elongated and bright green in the wild species. The inflorescence is terminal on the stem and consists of a branched panicle about 20-40 cm long bearing many small white to red flowers. In wild plants the fruit is a round red berry about 8 mm diameter, adapted for bird dispersal, and contains many black seeds.

The stems are linked below ground to thick fleshy rhizomes that grow vertically or obliquely downwards. These bear long cordlike roots with fibrous side branches. The rhizomes bear scale leaves with buds and new aerial stems can arise from them, making a mature plant a clump of interconnected stems. The rhizomes store sugar in the form of fructose (Hinkle, 2005).

The following description is taken from Little and Skolmen (2003):

‘A shrub or small tree to 15 ft (4.6 m) high with light grey smoothish trunk to 3 inches (7.5 cm) in diameter, becoming warty and slightly cracked, with horizontal rings, not divided into bark and wood. Within the thin brown outer layer, the trunk is whitish, soft, and bitter.

Leaves are alternate but very crowded in a spiral at end of erect stout hairless branch, with stout grooved greenish leafstalk of 2–4 inches (5–10 cm), hairless. Blades narrowly oblong, 7–18 inches (18–45 cm) long and 2–4 inches (5–10 cm) wide, broadest near middle and gradually narrowed to long-pointed ends, not toothed on edges, thin and flexible, with many long fine parallel veins, shiny green on both surfaces, leaving a ring scar.

Flower clusters (panicles) large, arising from center of cluster of leaves, 12–15 inches (30–38 cm) long, curved and branched. Flowers many, stalkless on slender drooping branches, from narrow whitish buds 0.5 inches (13 mm) long, tinged with purple, composed of narrow calyx whitish tube with six pointed lobes curled back, six yellow spreading stamens inserted in throat, and white pistil with three-celled ovary and slender style.

Fruits (berries) rarely formed, about 0.4 inches (6 mm) in diameter, yellow, turning to bright red. Seeds few, shiny black.’

From an indigenous origin in Papua or nearby, C. fruticosa was picked up by the migrating Polynesians (possibly from Taiwan) and carried to any island they happened to settle on. It was easily propagated from stem and rhizome cuttings. In the western Pacific the fleshy berries were dispersed by birds. Cultivars were selected and eventually a sterile cultivar was carried throughout eastern Polynesia (Hinkle, 2007). Maori carried it to New Zealand ca 13th century, including to the Kermadec Islands where it survives today. In New Zealand proper it is nearly extinct, with only one site of two plants recently discovered after a century of no records (Simpson, 2000). Subsequent to worldwide European settlement, it has been carried to warm, wet places as a colourful landscape/house plant.

Soil drainage

• free
• seasonally waterlogged

Soil texture

• light

C. fruticosa is a ‘canoe plant’ and has been dispersed in this way to every inhabited island in tropical Pacific over the last 4000 years. Since European colonization it has been taken by boats and probably aeroplanes to all tropical parts of the world, and is grown indoors in most temperate parts of the world. Locally it spreads by stem/rhizome pieces, and sometimes by seed, both of which could be dispersed by flood water. It would be spread in garden rubbish dumps and after floods or roadworks. It is a highly sought-after plant and may be taken with people as they move house or property in most parts of the Pacific.

C. fruticosa appears to be an entirely benign invasive species in ecological terms. It could potentially invade crops by being fragmented by ploughing, but there are no reports of this.

• Invasive in its native range
• Proved invasive outside its native range
• Has a broad native range
• Abundant in its native range
• Highly adaptable to different environments
• Is a habitat generalist
• Tolerates, or benefits from, cultivation, browsing pressure, mutilation, fire etc
• Pioneering in disturbed areas
• Tolerant of shade
• Benefits from human association (i.e. it is a human commensal)
• Long lived
• Fast growing
• Has high reproductive potential
• Reproduces asexually
• Has high genetic variability

• Competition - monopolizing resources
• Competition - shading

• Highly likely to be transported internationally deliberately

It been selected into innumerable cultivars reflecting a wide range of uses in food, medicine, textiles and religion. It has a very wide range of uses by indigenous peoples in the Pacific. The leaves are used in cooking, weaving, dress, mats etc., the plants are used to form hedges, the rhizomes and leaves are used in medicines for many ailments, and the rhizomes are a source of carbohydrate. The plants are highly regarded spiritually and are especially common in cemeteries. Among non-indigenous people the coloured leaves are widely used in gardens and the floral trade, and are intensively propagated in nurseries (International Cordyline Society, 2012).