Dear Kirk,
I believe they are the same.
When I saw a plant of the Indian species Sans.'Bandipur' in a local collection, I immediately had the feeling that I had seen it before. When I got home I soon found a picture that matched it quite well. It was a copy of the original illustration of H. van Rheede in Horti Malabarici 11: 83, t. 42 (1692) that is in The Sansevieria Journal 1 (2): 20, fig.1 (1992). That is the original illustration of the species that N.E. Brown lists as Sansevieria lanuginosa Willdenow in his monograph and is now correctly named Sansevieria ebracteata (Cavanilles) Suresh. It is the only Indian species described as having deeply ridged, thickened, semi-cylindrical leaves. Brown provides a thorough description of the species.
This plant from Bandipur was collected by Jerry Barad. When I visited his collection in July, I was surprised to find he no longer grows it himself. I have two other collections of the species made by R.Haresh in two other localities. It appears that Sans.ebracteata is not at all rare in habitat in southern India and possibly also Sri Lanka, even though it is seldom seen in collections.
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Sansevieria ebracteata (Cavanilles) Suresh in Nicholson, Suresh & Manilal, Interpret. Van Rheede's Hort. Malab. 271 (1988)
syn. Salmia ebracteata Cavanilles, Icon. Pl. Hisp. 3: 24 (1794)
Sansevieria lanuginosa Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 2: 160 (1797) nom. illegit.
Aletris zeylanica var. (alpha) Lamarck, Encycl. Meth. Bot. 1 (1): 79 (1783)
This is a renaming of the Indian species previously known as Sansevieria lanuginosa Willd. Suresh in Nicholson, et al. (1988) also noted that all recent collections of this species have glabrous leaves but they are actually quite rough to the touch. The wooly grooves mentioned in the original description in Rheede, Hort. Malab. 11: 83, t. 42 (1692) may possibly be a misinterpretation of the roughened texture of the leaves.
SJPI No. A023 Sansevieria sp. 'Bandipur' Collected by Jerry Barad, March 1975, in a rocky outcrop, close to Mysore Km 73 near Bandipur, India, in a tiger reserve. (Sansevieria Journ. 3 (2): 44 (1994)) appears to be referrable to Sans.ebracteata as it agrees well with the Rheede illustration.
References
Brown, N.E. (1915) SANSEVIERIA. A MONOGRAPH OF ALL KNOWN SPECIES. Kew Bulletin 1915 (5): 185-261, 23 figs. 2 plates.
Mangani, R. (1992) EARLY SANSEVIERIA ILLUSTRATIONS. The Sansevieria Journal 1 (2): 19-21, 4 figS.
Nicholson, D.H.; Suresh, C.R. & Manilal, K.S. (1988) AN INTERPRETATION OF VAN RHEEDE'S HORTUS MALABARICUS. Koeltz Scientific Books.
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•Subject: identification question
•From: Kirk Pamper
•Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 20:28:56 EDT
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Hello all,
Does anyone have a good description of Sans. ebracteata, and could this plant
be synonymous with Sans. sp. 'Bandipur'?
Speculating,
Kirk
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