Crispy Tips, Spider Babies, and Why Your Cat Keeps Chewing on It

If you grew up anywhere near the 1980s or 1990s, your family or school library almost certainly had a giant, bushy spider plant hanging in macrame by a window, spitting out dozens of miniature baby plants on long arching runners.

Chlorophytum comosum is one of the oldest, most reliable staples of indoor gardening for good reason: it tolerates irregular watering, bounces back from missed waterings, cleans indoor air, and is completely non-toxic to pets.

Yet despite its rugged durability, two universal questions haunt almost every spider plant parent:

Let's address the feline mystery first, because it's delightfully weird.

The Feline Obsession: Is Spider Plant Catnip?

If you have a cat, you’ve probably noticed they ignore your ferns and snake plants, but will cross entire rooms, hop onto high cabinets, and perform acrobatic stunts just to chomp on spider plant leaves.

There is a real biochemical reason for this: spider plants contain chemical compounds that produce a mild hallucinogenic and euphoric effect in cats, very similar to catnip!

When your cat nibbles a leaf, it gets a tiny, harmless buzz. The ASPCA officially lists Chlorophytum comosum as completely non-toxic to both cats and dogs. Chewing on it won't poison them, although if your cat devours twenty leaves in one sitting, the fibrous plant material will probably cause them to throw up on your favorite rug.

If you want to save your plant's dignity (and your rugs):

The Secret Behind the Crispy Brown Tips

Few things are more frustrating than a full, vibrant spider plant whose leaf ends look like someone scorched them with a lighter.

Here is the truth: spider plants have an intense, chemical grudge against fluoride, chlorine, and dissolved salts found in municipal tap water.

Spider plants possess thick, fleshy tuberous roots (like little white radishes) that store water efficiently. When you pour tap water into the pot, the plant drinks greedily. But unlike other elements that the plant uses for cell growth, fluoride and mineral salts cannot be processed or metabolized.

The plant shuttles these minerals to the very extremities of its foliage—the leaf tips. Because water continuously transpires (evaporates) through the leaf tip pores, the mineral salts concentrate until they chemically burn the sensitive tissue, leaving a crunchy brown tip.

The 3-Step Tip Remedy:

How to Trigger a Flood of "Spider Babies" (Spiderettes)

Why do some spider plants pump out ten cascading runners full of little white star-shaped flowers and baby spiderettes, while others just sit as a static clump of leaves?

Here is the counterintuitive secret: Spider plants produce babies when they are snug and slightly root-bound.

If you pot a small spider plant into an enormous 12-inch ceramic tub, it will spend the next two years focusing 100% of its energy on expanding its root tuber network to fill all that vacant dirt. It won't produce a single runner.

To get an abundance of cascading babies:

Rooting Spiderettes in 2 Simple Steps

Once your mother plant produces runners with dangling spiderettes:

They are the ultimate gift plant—one happy mother plant can furnish your entire circle of friends with fresh green babies for years to come.