Random plant event: Dracaena deremensis 'Warneckei' sport?

One of the first things I got to do when I started the new job was cut back a big Dracaena deremensis 'Warneckei' that had one cane that was too tall, and beginning to fall over. The particular plant in question was having all kinds of other problems too, mostly from being too hot and in too much sun, but there wasn't much we could do about that in late August.

So I cut part off and shortened the cane and stuck what was left over back into the soil, and it eventually (after about three months) rooted and everything, and after a little bit of cleaning up, it's . . . well, it's still not going to be winning the Miss Dracaena Pageant anytime soon. But it's still looking better than it was.

The raison d'post here is that when the cane I cut resprouted, it did so with an interesting variegation pattern of green leaves with a broad white stripe in the middle:


It remains to be seen whether this is going to be stable, or whether it's just something it's doing with the new small leaves before it gets back to business as usual. There's potential money in this if it proves to be stable and propagatable, though I'd be surprised if this is something we're equipped to handle, legally and practically: patenting requires proof that it's a stable mutation, among many other things, and we don't have the space to devote to a large number of slow-growing plants, and so on and so forth. I'd be surprised if it were stable, too, as far as that goes. But I suppose even if we didn't do the propagation ourselves, we could still patent it ourselves and then sell the rights to someone else, so it's worth keeping an eye on. If I had any room at all inside the apartment, and a lot of extra money laying around, I'd consider buying it myself, just to see what it's going to do.


UPDATE: There's considerably more on this plant at the profile post for Dracaena deremensis 'Warneckei,' including its identification as a previously-known variety and a lot more detail about plant patenting.