Clair, your plant is a Pony Tail Palm/Beaucarnea. Don't let the Palm throw you off..It's not a palm.

The bulb of your Pony Tail grows larger with age. I grow mine PT's as succulent, otherwise, if soil is left constantly wet, the bulb will rot.

PT's are sun-lovers, need well-draining soil, and since it's slow-growing, needs little fertilizer. Twice a year is sufficient. My PT's are fertilized with organic, Fish Emulsion.

Very pretty. Toni

Oh, neat! Thanks. Googling "wavy plant" wasn't helping. This is much easier. :)

One of those plants that gets two names. We used to call them Beaucarnia, now we refer to them as Nolina Recurveata (I'm speaking from Europe).

As said, lots of light, very little water and will tolerate a wide temperature range.

The bulb will keep growing fatter - don't leave it too late to move to a bigger pot or it'll bust it!

One more thing: beware the leaves will give you a nasty 'paper cut' if you run your fingers down the edges.

(I'm speaking from Europe) The naming system is universal, except in cases of common names, but daggone difficult lately with all of the renaming, messing with an identification system that was never invented or intended to be genetically correct, but I will stop now before I get to ranting stage.

Does rubbing either way cut skin, or is it only in one direction, like a lot of ornamental grasses?

That is about the nicest one I've ever seen.

This must be "the" plant of 2012 because I've seen them everywhere lately.

Susan

"Does rubbing either way cut skin, or is it only in one direction, like a lot of ornamental grasses?"

I think both ways. As we use them in commercial buildings they can get dusty and are hard to clean. It's so tempting to get a hand in and run your fingers up the fronds to clean them. You only make that mistake once.

Saying that, there seems to be some variation: some are definitely rougher than others.

I preface comments about names with the 'Europe' comment as the names you guys use and the names I use when talking to my Dutch suppliers are sometimes slightly different. As we can see, some plants have two+ latin names - very silly.

Purple, I have four Pony Tails.. edges of leaves are a bit jagged, but nowhere near as pinchy as Pandanus/Screw Pine.

StewartJon, actually Beaucarnea is synonymous with Nolina. Check out desert-tropicals dot com.

Thanks for the clarifications. That's enough to keep it off of my porch, whew!

...because
"That is about the nicest one I've ever seen." Agreed. Tempting.

"two+ latin names - very silly" Well said!

Do Google image searches on Beaucarnea and Nolina. Some apparently get quite large where the climate permits growing outside.