Pandanus are usually large spiky plants with large fruiting heads and are therefore hard to collect and are often poorly represented in herbarium collections. Harold St John and Benjamin Stone were 2 Botanists who collected, studied and named many of these plants. Most pandanus are shrubs or trees with slender trunks and only a few branches. Pandanus are usually in the tropics and often they grow in damp or swampy ground. Some grow in drier forests.
There are about 600 species of Pandanus. These naturally grow in Africa (25 species), Madagascar (85 species), Asia Australia (25 species) and into the Pacific.