A giant herbaceous perennial from Southeast Asia and the principal wild ancestor of most cultivated dessert bananas. What looks like a trunk is a 'pseudostem' — tightly rolled leaf sheaths — topped by a fountain of huge, paddle-shaped leaves that can run 6-10 feet long, giving an instant tropical effect. In frost-free climates (USDA zones 10a-11b) an established clump produces a drooping flower spike and a hanging bunch of edible fruit, then that pseudostem dies and is replaced by a sucker from the base. It is frost-tender: everywhere colder it is grown as a bold container or greenhouse foliage plant that is overwintered indoors and rarely, if ever, fruits.

A clumping, multi-stemmed evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for its unmistakable crane-head flowers — a horizontal green-and-pink spathe from which bright orange sepals and vivid blue petals emerge like the crest of an exotic bird. Bold, paddle-shaped blue-green leaves on long stalks form a 3-4 foot fountain of foliage. Winter hardy only in USDA zones 10-12 (frost-free subtropics); everywhere colder it is grown as a houseplant or summered-out container plant. It blooms reliably only from a well-established, somewhat crowded clump, so patience is the key to flowers.

A long-lived clump-forming perennial vegetable grown for its thick, tart leaf stalks (petioles), which range from deep red to pink to green and are used in sauces, jams, and pies. Bold, heart-shaped dark green leaves rise 2-3 feet over a wide crown, and tall whitish flower panicles appear from late spring into summer. The leaf blades are NOT edible — they carry toxic levels of oxalic acid — only the stalks are eaten.

The Mediterranean evergreen whose leathery, glossy dark-green leaves are the bay leaf of the kitchen. Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder describes it as a pyramidal, aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub that can reach 60 feet but is usually seen at 10-30 feet and is often pruned to 8 feet or less for garden use. Trees are dioecious: small yellowish-green spring flowers on female plants, if pollinated, give way to single-seeded purple-black berries. Winter hardy only to USDA Zone 8, so it is grown as a clipped container houseplant farther north.

A fast-growing, tendril-climbing native vine of the eastern United States, named "maypop" for the fleshy egg-shaped fruits that pop underfoot. Its intricate 2.5-inch fringed flowers — white-to-lavender petals beneath a pinkish-purple filament crown and a raised central androgynophore — are precisely engineered for large carpenter bees. Woody in warm-winter climates and herbaceous (dying to the ground) where winters are cold, it climbs to 6-8 feet on a trellis and produces edible yellowish maypops in fall.

A tall, tuber-forming perennial sunflower native to eastern North America — also called Jerusalem artichoke or sunroot — grown both for its 2-4 inch bright-yellow late-summer sunflowers and its knobby edible underground tubers. Rough-hairy stems rise 6-10 feet bearing ovate, serrate leaves on winged petioles. It spreads aggressively by rhizome and self-seeding to form colonies; Missouri Botanical Garden flatly calls it "weedy and invasive" and difficult to remove once planted.