Northeast India-Myanmar pine forests

A virtually stemless, broadleaf-evergreen native of central and eastern North America: a basal rosette of rigid, sword-shaped, spine-tipped leaves up to 30 inches long, fringed along the margins with the curly white threads that give the species its name. In early summer a flowering stalk shoots from the center to 5 to 8 feet, carrying nodding, bell-shaped, creamy-white flowers. Tough enough for poor sandy soil, heat, drought, and salt spray, it earns its keep as architectural structure in dry and seaside gardens.

A tall, summer-growing cormous perennial from across sub-Saharan Africa, grown for arching spikes of large, hooded, orange-to-red-and-yellow flowers in summer over fans of sword-shaped leaves. This is the widespread wild African gladiolus and a key ancestor of the big garden gladioli. Unlike the winter-growing Cape bulbs, it is a SUMMER-GROWING corm: plant in spring, grow and flower through summer, then it dies back to a dormant corm for winter. It wants full sun, well-drained soil, and summer moisture, and is one of the hardier species gladioli - surviving to about USDA zone 7 with a deep winter mulch or by lifting the corms in cold-winter areas. The corms are toxic and irritant if eaten and have been used in traditional medicine, never as food. In the wild the hooded flowers are pollinated by sunbirds and long-tongued insects.

A bold, clump-forming evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for big rounded umbels of trumpet-shaped blue (or white) flowers held on tall bare stalks above arching, strap-shaped leaves in mid-to-late summer. It is widely sold as "lily of the Nile," but that is a misnomer - the plant is South African (the Cape provinces and KwaZulu-Natal), not from the Nile. Spectacular and easy in warm climates, this evergreen Agapanthus is frost-tender, so in cold-winter areas it is grown in a container and overwintered under cover. The RHS has given several Agapanthus praecox forms its Award of Garden Merit and rates this evergreen species half-hardy (H3 - needs winter protection).

A tall, bold warm-season annual from Mexico and Guatemala (the "African" name is a misnomer of its European garden history) grown for large, fully double, pompon-like flowerheads in saturated yellow, gold, and orange over strongly aromatic, finely divided foliage. Plants reach 1 to 4 feet and bloom from early summer to frost in full sun. The petals are edible and used as a culinary garnish and natural dye, and the flowers are the iconic "flor de muerto" of Mexican Day of the Dead. Despite the wide listed zone range it is frost-tender and grown for a single warm season.

A native Southeastern North American semi-evergreen woodland groundcover (Pachysandra procumbens), prized for its blue-green to bronze mottled leaves and fragrant white-to-pinkish bottlebrush flower spikes that open at ground level in late winter to early spring. Unlike the widely planted invasive Asian Pachysandra terminalis, this native spreads slowly by rhizomes into well-behaved clumping colonies, making it a low, restrained groundcover for shaded native plantings.

Hippeastrum x hybridum is a complex garden hybrid derived from six or more wild Hippeastrum species native to tropical and subtropical South America, developed through intensive breeding since the late 18th century and now the dominant "amaryllis" sold worldwide as a holiday bulb. It produces spectacular trumpet-shaped flowers - 5 to 8 inches across - on stout leafless scapes in red, pink, white, orange, salmon, or bicolour, making it one of the most dramatic winter-flowering houseplants available. The honest catch is toxicity: the entire plant, especially the bulb, contains lycorine and related alkaloids at concentrations that cause vomiting, salivation, tremors, and hypotension in pets and children, so it must be placed out of reach and handled with care.

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a loose, open, arching deciduous shrub of the southeastern and south-central United States, grown almost entirely for one spectacular autumn trick. Through summer it is a quiet green background plant, carrying small clusters of pink-to-lilac flowers tucked into the leaf axils. Then, from late summer into fall, those clusters ripen into tight whorls of vivid magenta-purple berries that wrap right around the stems at every leaf joint, so the arching branches look strung with beads. Songbirds strip them through fall and early winter. It is an easy, fast-growing, forgiving native that asks for little: full sun to part shade, ordinary well-drained soil, and room to arch. Site it where the fall berry show can be seen, because in leaf and flower it is plain, and in fruit it is one of the most distinctive shrubs you can grow.

A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5 to 12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh - they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

The American elm is the great vase-shaped shade tree that once arched over Main Streets and town commons across eastern North America - a fast, extremely cold-hardy deciduous tree of 60 to 80 feet whose upright trunk divides into a fountain of high, spreading limbs that meet overhead to form a living cathedral ceiling. That iconic form, and the species' tolerance of wet soil and tough urban conditions, made it the default American street tree for a century. Then Dutch elm disease (DED) - an introduced fungal disease carried by elm bark beetles - swept through in the 20th century and killed the vast majority of mature street and shade elms across the continent. The honest reality for a gardener today is blunt: do not plant the unselected wild species expecting it to survive. If you want the American-elm form, plant a DED-tolerant cultivar bred and selected for resistance - 'Princeton', 'Valley Forge', 'New Harmony', or 'Jefferson' - and say so plainly. Where it does grow, it is fast, hardy to USDA zone 3, and remarkably forgiving of wet ground and city stress.

American germander, also called wood sage, is a widespread North American native perennial in the mint family that runs steadily underground on creeping rhizomes. From early to midsummer it sends up erect, softly hairy stems topped with one-sided spikes of pale pink-to-lavender flowers, each with the distinctive deeply lobed lower lip that gives the germanders their look and makes a generous landing platform for bees. It is a plant of moist open ground - wet meadows, streambanks, ditches, and the edges of thickets - across most of the contiguous United States into southern Canada, which tells you exactly what it wants: sun and a soil that does not dry out. The honest caveat is its vigor: those same rhizomes that fill a bank or a rain garden so readily will also colonize a tidy perennial border and crowd politer neighbors. Site it where it can run, or give it a root barrier, and it rewards you with a long, dependable bee-friendly bloom rather than a maintenance fight.

A rounded, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native across eastern and central North America, grown for its edible nuts and its season-opening catkins. Showy 2-3 inch yellowish-brown male catkins dangle from bare branches in early spring before the ovate, double-toothed leaves emerge; small egg-shaped edible nuts ripen inside leafy husks by mid- to late summer. Easygoing in average soil and tolerant of clay and black walnut, it suckers into thickets that screen and shelter wildlife.

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious - a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit - and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.

A native canopy tree of eastern North American forests with iconic star-shaped 5-lobed leaves displaying outstanding red-purple-orange fall color, distinctive corky wing-bark on twigs, and spiky round seed pods that famously litter lawns ("gumballs"). The seed pods are the design-defining drawback - Liquidambar is rarely planted in formal landscapes for this reason. Choose seedless cultivars ('Rotundiloba', 'Slender Silhouette') for residential planting.

A massive native deciduous canopy tree of eastern North American floodplain forests producing distinctive mottled white-tan-gray exfoliating bark (the design-defining trait - sycamore bark looks like military camouflage), large palmate maple-like leaves, and persistent spherical seed balls. Among the largest deciduous trees in eastern North America - old-growth specimens exceed 150 feet tall + 10 feet trunk diameter. Site only where massive scale is acceptable.

Dierama pulcherrimum, angel's fishing rod, is an arching, more-or-less evergreen cormous perennial in the iris family (Iridaceae), endemic to the open summer-rainfall grasslands of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It forms grassy tufts of long, narrow leaves from which tall, wiry, arching flower stems rise to about 4.9 feet (occasionally to 5.9 feet), each hung with pendulous, bell-shaped rosy-pink to purple flowers in summer - the namesake "fishing rod" silhouette over a pond or in a gravel garden. It is the load-bearing caution to note that this is only a borderline-hardy plant: RHS rates it H4 (hardy to roughly 14 to 23°F / USDA ~8b-9), so in colder zones it needs a sheltered, sunny, sharply drained spot, a winter mulch, or container/glasshouse protection, and it resents disturbance once established. It is not recorded as toxic - though it is grown purely as an ornamental and is not a food plant, so treat it as inedible. It is well-behaved (Least Concern in the wild, no recorded weediness) and suits borders, pond margins, and containers in mild-temperate gardens.

A native eastern-US deciduous shrub - 'Annabelle' is a sterile-flowered cultivar of smooth hydrangea - with very large white snowball blooms in summer. Blooms on new wood so spring frost cannot destroy the flower display, and serves as the larval host for the hydrangea sphinx moth.

Armand clematis is a vigorous evergreen climbing shrub native to much of China (except the north and extreme south) and northern Myanmar, grown for its profusion of almond-scented, star-shaped white flowers in early spring (March-April) on the previous season's wood. It excels as a structure-covering climber on sheltered walls, pergolas, and fences, providing year-round glossy, deep-green foliage. The honest catch is its rampant vigor: in a favored site it can overwhelm host structures within a few years, sheds masses of dead leaves through the year (a persistent litter problem), and all parts are toxic to cats, dogs, and horses (and the sap irritates skin) - and it is only reliably hardy to about USDA zone 7b with the shelter of a warm wall, making it a borderline plant anywhere colder.

A fast cool-season annual of the mustard family grown for its peppery, mustard-like salad greens - irregular, pinnately-lobed basal leaves in a low rosette, each with 4 to 10 small lateral lobes and a large terminal lobe (Missouri Botanical Garden). First cultivated by the ancient Greeks and Romans and still widely grown across Europe, it is best grown in the cooler spring and fall months rather than summer heat; leaves are harvested young and tender before they turn strong and bitter. Pale-yellow four-petalled flowers with dark brown or purple veins appear in corymbs if plants are left to bloom.

A deciduous Eastern-Asian fruit tree with a rounded, spreading crown that the Missouri Botanical Garden lists at 20 to 30 feet tall and wide. Oval leaves emerge yellowish-green, mature to glossy green, and turn gold to red in fall; fragrant but insignificant late-spring flowers give way to showy orange persimmons (3 to 4 inches) that ripen in late fall and may persist on bare branches into winter. Winter hardy to USDA Zones 7-10 and drought tolerant once established.

A long-lived herbaceous perennial vegetable grown for the tender young spears harvested in April and May before they unfurl. Native to Europe and temperate Asia, it grows from a crown that takes 2-3 years to come into production but then yields for fifteen years or more. Spears left uncut grow into airy 3-4 foot summer ferns; the plants are dioecious, and female plants ripen ornamental red berries in late summer.

Atlas cedar is a large, long-lived evergreen conifer native to the Rif and Atlas Mountains of Morocco and the Tell Atlas of Algeria, where it forms forests at 3,839 to 7,218 feet elevation (Wikipedia). In cultivation it develops a stately, broadly conical to flat-topped crown with silver-blue to grey-green needles, reaching 98 to 115 feet tall - a genuinely majestic specimen tree for large gardens and parkland. The honest catch is scale: this is not a suburban garden tree. It grows too large for most plots, casts dense, permanent shade beneath its canopy, and drops barrel-shaped cones that can be heavy and messy. Surface roots lift paving and outcompete underplanting once the tree matures.

Aubrieta (Aubrieta deltoidea) is a low, mat-forming evergreen perennial in the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to the rocky hillsides of southeastern Europe - primarily Greece, the Aegean Islands, Crete, and adjacent Mediterranean coasts. It is one of the most reliable spring-flowering ground covers for sunny, well-drained spots: cascading sheets of violet to deep pink four-petalled blooms from March through May, attractive to bees and bee flies. The honest catch is that without a hard cut-back immediately after flowering, plants become woody and bare in the centre within two or three years, collapsing from a tight carpet into a tired, gappy mat.

Bodnant viburnum is a garden hybrid (Viburnum farreri × V. grandiflorum) bred circa 1935 at Bodnant Garden in Wales, with no wild native range. Its signature appeal is intensely fragrant, deep-pink flower clusters that open on bare stems from November through March - a unique winter-to-early-spring performance that few shrubs can match. The honest catch is timing: those early flowers are highly frost-tender and a single hard freeze after they open can destroy an entire season's bloom, leaving the plant ornamentally ordinary until autumn foliage color arrives.

Flowering currant is a deciduous shrub native to the Pacific coast of western North America, from British Columbia south through Washington and Oregon to coastal California (as far south as Santa Barbara County), with a marginal inland presence in Idaho and a southern outpost on Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Its bold dangling racemes of deep-pink to crimson flowers open in early spring, often before the leaves, making it one of the most conspicuous late-winter shrubs in mild gardens. The honest catch is threefold: it is a confirmed alternate host of white pine blister rust (a serious pathogen of five-needled pines), its blue-black berries are edible but notably insipid, and it has become an established invasive weed in New Zealand (where it forms dense stands excluding native species) and is a more minor, localized weed in Tasmania.

Iberis sempervirens is a spreading, mat-forming evergreen subshrub native to the mountains of southern Europe - Spain, France, Italy and the Balkans - with a wider naturalised and cited range into North Africa and the Levant, valued in gardens for its sheet of pure white flowers in spring. It is exceptionally cold-hardy for a Mediterranean plant (USDA zones 3–9), drought-tolerant once established, and thrives in lean, fast-draining soils. The honest catch is its pruning requirement: skip the post-bloom shear and within two to three seasons the plant becomes a woody, bare-centred tangle that no amount of light trimming will rescue - plants cut back by a third immediately after flowering stay dense for decades, while neglected ones rarely recover from hard renovation.

Saucer magnolia is a deciduous garden hybrid - no wild range - created around 1820 by French horticulturist Étienne Soulange-Bodin by crossing Magnolia denudata with M. liliiflora at his estate near Paris (it first flowered in 1826). It is one of the most widely planted flowering trees in temperate gardens worldwide, prized for its spectacular goblet-shaped blooms in white, pink, and deep purple-rose that open on bare branches in early spring. The honest catch is its Achilles heel: the flowers emerge weeks before the last frost date across much of its hardiness range, and a single late-frost night after bud-break turns those magnificent blooms to brown mush - a reliable disappointment in zones 5 and 6 in the northern United States. Site under a south-facing wall or in a frost-sheltered hollow to gain even a few degrees of protection.

Aloe vera is a succulent perennial grown almost everywhere as an easy houseplant: a low rosette of thick, fleshy, toothed, grey-green leaves filled with the clear gel it is famous for. POWO (Kew) gives its native range as the Arabian Peninsula, though the exact wild origin is uncertain after millennia of cultivation, and it is now grown worldwide as the familiar medicinal aloe. Indoors it wants bright light or a sunny windowsill and very infrequent watering - it is highly drought-tolerant and rots if overwatered, which is the single most common way to kill it. Its uses are genuinely nuanced: the clear inner leaf gel is widely applied to skin (minor burns) and is consumed in aloe juices and drinks, but the yellow latex just beneath the rind is a powerful laxative and irritant that should not be casually eaten (and is best avoided in pregnancy), and the whole plant is toxic to cats and dogs. It is frost-tender and hardy outdoors only in roughly USDA zones 9b-11; everywhere colder it lives in a pot. RHS gives it the Award of Garden Merit as an easy succulent houseplant and rates it H1C. Its air-purifying reputation, drawn from a single 1989 NASA chamber study, is negligible at realistic room densities - grow it for the plant itself, not to clean your air.

Angel's trumpet (Brugmansia suaveolens) is a large, soft-wooded shrub or small tree hung with enormous pendulous trumpet flowers - up to 12 inches long, white aging to soft blush, and intensely fragrant in the evening and at night. Native to the Atlantic Forest of south-eastern Brazil (POWO, Kew; Flora e Funga do Brasil), it is now classified Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN and survives only in cultivation, which makes a familiar garden plant quietly remarkable. It grows fast and thirsty in warmth (USDA zones 9b-11b) and is frost-tender, so in cold-winter areas it is grown in a large container and overwintered under cover. The load-bearing warning is its toxicity: EVERY PART IS HIGHLY TOXIC, loaded with tropane alkaloids (scopolamine, atropine, hyoscyamine), and poisonings can be severe or fatal - never plant it where children or pets could reach it.

Scadoxus multiflorus, the blood lily (also fireball lily, ball lily, powderpuff lily), is a summer-growing bulbous geophyte in the Amaryllidaceae, native across tropical and southern Africa to the southwestern Arabian Peninsula. Each bulb sends up a leafless stem topped by a dramatic globe-shaped umbel of scarlet flowers with protruding stamens, often before or alongside the foliage. It is a focal-point container and bedding bulb prized for its bold flower head, but it is decidedly tender - RHS rates it H1B (minimum 50 to 59°F), so outside roughly USDA zones 9b–11 it must be grown under glass or as a houseplant and dried off / overwintered frost-free. CRITICAL CAUTION: every part is toxic - Scadoxus contains poisonous alkaloids and has been used as a component of arrow and fishing poisons; the bulbs are ornamental, not edible, and the plant is harmful to people, pets, and grazing animals if ingested. Handle with gloves and keep away from children and animals.

A vigorous, thorny tropical woody vine from Brazil, grown across the warm world for one of the most spectacular floral displays in horticulture - sheets of magenta, purple, red, orange, pink, or white that can smother a wall, fence, or pergola. The vivid color, though, is not from petals: it comes from papery BRACTS (modified leaves) that surround the true flowers, which are small, slender, and white to cream. Bougainvillea spectabilis is a sprawling, climbing scrambler armed with sharp, woody thorns; in frost-free climates it reaches 15 to 40 feet, hauling itself up supports and over rooftops, but it can also be kept hard-pruned as a shrub, a hedge, or a container plant. It is frost-tender and hardy in the ground only in USDA zones 9b-11b; everywhere colder it is grown as a greenhouse, conservatory, or seasonal container plant and overwintered indoors. It blooms most heavily when grown lean and a little dry in blazing full sun, which is why the showiest bougainvilleas are often the ones that look slightly neglected. The quickest way to tell it from the near-identical B. glabra is touch: B. spectabilis has softly hairy (pubescent) young stems, leaf undersides, and flower-tubes and broader, more rounded bracts, where B. glabra is smooth and hairless.

Cape honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis, Bignoniaceae) is a vigorous, evergreen scrambling shrub from southern and south-central Africa, valued for tubular orange-to-apricot flowers borne erratically across much of the year. It reaches about 6.6 to 9.8 feet tall and wide as a free-standing shrub, or can be trained much taller on a trellis or wall, and is widely used for informal hedging and as a hot-color border or container plant. It is frost-tender (RHS H1C; roughly USDA 9b-11) - in cooler climates it is grown under glass or as a summer container plant and overwintered indoors. In frost-free, mild climates it can become weedy: it has naturalised and is treated as invasive in parts of Australia and on islands such as the Azores, so site it where suckering and self-layering can be managed. It is not a recognised edible and is not flagged as notably toxic, though several plant parts feature in traditional southern-African medicine; treat it as ornamental rather than for consumption. Note the accepted binomial here is Tecomaria capensis (POWO/GBIF); the widely-seen Tecoma capensis is a synonym.

A fast-growing tropical woody shrub grown for its swollen, starchy storage roots - cassava, the mandioca of Brazil and one of the great staple foods of the tropical world. POWO (Kew) and Flora e Funga do Brasil record Manihot esculenta as native to and first domesticated in Brazil and the southern Amazon, the homeland of mandioca, manioc and tapioca. It forms a slender, upright shrub of palmately-lobed leaves on often red-tinged, jointed stems, and below ground it swells a cluster of long tuberous roots that are harvested, peeled and cooked. HONESTY (load-bearing): cassava is one of the most important food crops of the tropics, but the raw roots AND leaves contain cyanogenic glycosides (linamarin) and are TOXIC if eaten raw or under-processed - they must be peeled and properly cooked, and bitter varieties soaked and/or fermented, to drive off the cyanide before they are safe to eat. It is frost-tender (roughly USDA zone 9b and up) and drought-tolerant once established, which is exactly why it is such a dependable famine-insurance crop across the warm tropics.

Veltheimia bracteata, the forest lily, is a winter-growing bulbous perennial from the forest margins and coastal scrub of South Africa's Eastern Cape, grown for its glossy rosette of wavy-edged strap leaves and a tall, dense raceme of pendent tubular flowers in shades of pink to rose, blooming in late winter through spring when little else is in flower. It is frost-tender (RHS H2): it tolerates cool conditions but not freezing, so outside roughly USDA zone 9b-11 it is grown as a container or conservatory bulb, dormant and dry through summer. It thrives in semi-shade with humus-rich, well-drained soil and makes an excellent pot specimen. The bird-pollinated flowers attract sunbirds. As a member of Asparagaceae (subfamily Scilloideae), it is grown for ornament only; the bulb is toxic and must not be eaten. It is well-behaved and not reported as invasive.

A fast, easy, productive evergreen large shrub or small tree from tropical America, grown across warm Brazil as the goiaba. It carries smooth, mottled, peeling bark, prominently veined leaves, and white flowers followed by the fragrant, vitamin-C-rich edible fruit. In frost-free climates (roughly USDA zones 9b-11b) it begins bearing within a few years and crops heavily and reliably, which is exactly why it has become a serious invasive weed in many tropical regions outside its native range. It is frost-tender and grown in the ground only where winters stay mild; bees do the pollinating.

Pelargonium peltatum, the ivy-leaved geranium, is a trailing, semi-succulent evergreen perennial from the Cape region of South Africa, grown worldwide for the cascading mauve-to-pink-to-white flower clusters it carries over fleshy, five-lobed, ivy-shaped leaves. Its scrambling stems (to about 6.6 feet in the wild) make it the classic plant for hanging baskets, window boxes, and balcony planters, where it spills and blooms from spring through summer. It is genuinely frost-tender - RHS rates it H2 (hardy only to about 34 to 41°F), so outside roughly USDA zones 9b-11 it is treated as a container or annual plant and overwintered indoors before the first autumn frost. Unlike the toxic bulbs of some other South African ornamentals, this pelargonium is not one of those poisonous bulbs and its young buds and leaves are even traditionally eaten by people; note, however, that like other pelargoniums it is regarded as mildly toxic to pets (cats and dogs), so keep grazing animals away from it. It demands full sun and sharp drainage, tolerates drought, but will not take shade or freezing. In Mediterranean climates (California, Spain, Portugal, Greece) it has naturalized, so site it thoughtfully where winters are mild.

Aloe arborescens (Krantz aloe, also candelabra aloe) is a large, multi-headed evergreen succulent shrub from southeastern southern Africa, growing 6.6 to 13.1 feet tall with branching stems topped by blue-green rosettes of toothed, recurved leaves. In winter it throws up unbranched, vivid red-orange flower racemes that draw sunbirds, butterflies, and bees, making it a strong structural and pollinator plant for frost-free Mediterranean and subtropical gardens or large containers. It is frost-tender: the RHS rates it H1b (hardy only to about 50 to 59°F), so outside roughly USDA zone 9b-11 it must be grown under glass or moved indoors for winter. The RHS flags it as harmful if eaten by people and pets - the bitter yellow leaf latex carries aloin (an anthraquinone laxative/irritant), distinct from the milder clear inner gel used traditionally in folk medicine. It is also noted as locally invasive where conditions are mild (e.g. Portugal), so site it thoughtfully in benign climates. Easily propagated from cuttings, it is widely planted in South Africa as a living security hedge around kraals.

Leonotis leonurus, the lion's ear or wild dagga, is a fast-growing, soft-woody evergreen shrub in the mint family (Lamiaceae) native to South Africa, reaching about 4.9 to 9.8 feet tall with square stems carrying tiered whorls of brilliant orange, tubular two-lipped flowers. In the garden it works as a striking late-season focal shrub or large border plant for hot, dry, full-sun positions and pairs naturally with other South African and Mediterranean-climate planting. It is frost-tender - RHS rates it H2, meaning it tolerates cool conditions down to about 34 to 41°F but is killed by hard freezes - so outside roughly USDA zone 9b–11 it is grown in containers, as a cut-back tender perennial, or under glass. Note that the dried leaves are mildly psychoactive (containing leonurine and labdane diterpenes) and the plant is regulated in some countries, and high-dose animal studies have shown organ toxicity, so it should not be treated as a food or casually ingested. It can also naturalize and become weedy in frost-free Mediterranean climates such as parts of California, Hawaii and Australia.

An evergreen, clump-forming shade perennial grown for its bold rounded heads of funnel-shaped orange (or yellow) flowers held on stout stalks above arching, strap-shaped, dark-green leaves in late winter and spring. Known respectfully as the Natal lily, bush lily, or simply clivia, it is one of the finest plants for dry shade in frost-free gardens and a classic houseplant everywhere else. Native to South Africa - the Cape provinces, KwaZulu-Natal, and Eswatini (POWO, Kew) - it is frost-tender (hardy roughly in USDA zones 9b-11) and is grown in a container or as a houseplant wherever winters dip below freezing. Two things are load-bearing: grown indoors it needs a cool, dry winter rest of about six to eight weeks kept cool and barely watered to set flower buds, then warmth and water to bloom; and every part is toxic (lycorine and related alkaloids) to people and pets if eaten, with sap that can irritate skin. It resents disturbance and flowers best when slightly pot-bound, so it is happiest left alone in the same pot for years.

Gasteria bicolor is a slow-growing, tongue-leaved succulent native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where it grows on rocky slopes and outcrops in thicket vegetation around Port Elizabeth (a summer-rainfall region). Its mottled, strap-shaped leaves and arching racemes of curved, stomach-shaped pink-to-orange flowers make it a forgiving container plant for warm, frost-free settings, and it tolerates light shade better than most succulents - a useful trait for brighter indoor positions. The honest catch is its tenderness: it is damaged below about 41°F and cannot survive frost, so gardeners outside USDA zones 9b-11 must overwinter it indoors. It is a container-and-houseplant plant, not a garden perennial in most of the world.

A vigorous evergreen woody climber from Brazil - called primavera or buganvilia in its homeland - grown across the warm world for its long-lasting, brilliant papery bracts in magenta, purple, white, or pink. The vivid color is not from petals: it comes from those papery BRACTS (modified leaves), which surround the small, tubular, cream-colored true flowers tucked at their centers. POWO (Kew) and Flora e Funga do Brasil both record Bougainvillea glabra as native to Brazil. Left to climb it hauls itself up walls, fences, and pergolas to 10 to 30 feet, but kept pruned it makes a dense, mounding shrub; it is armed with sharp thorns and flowers hardest when grown lean, hot, and a little dry in blazing full sun. It is frost-tender and hardy in the ground only in USDA zones 9b-11b; everywhere colder it is grown as a greenhouse, conservatory, or container plant and overwintered indoors. Its name is the field mark: glabra means smooth, and its hairless stems and leaves - plus smaller, more triangular bracts and a freer, near-continuous bloom - are the quickest way to tell it from the softly hairy, larger-bracted B. spectabilis.

A vigorous, evergreen, tendril-climbing vine from the subtropics of southern Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina, grown both for its strikingly intricate purple-and-white flowers and for its edible passion fruit. The flower is a small work of engineering: a ring of white-and-purple petals beneath a fringed corona of wavy purple-banded filaments, with the five anthers and three stigmas held on a raised central column at exactly the height a large carpenter bee brushes as it forages. Where winters are frost-free (USDA zones 9b-11b) it is a fast, hard-climbing perennial that can blanket a sturdy trellis or fence in a single season and produces round, leathery purple or yellow fruits whose aromatic, seedy pulp is the fragrant passion fruit of juices and desserts. Two honest cautions matter: it is a frost-tender plant grown as an annual or under glass where colder, and the unripe fruit and the foliage contain cyanogenic compounds and are mildly toxic, so only fully ripe fruit should be eaten.

Pig's ear is a rounded, grey-leaved succulent shrublet from southern Africa, grown for its thick, chalky-white, often red-edged paddle leaves and its tall stalks of nodding, orange-red, bell-shaped flowers that are loved by sunbirds. GBIF places it native widely across southern Africa - the Cape Provinces, Free State, Eswatini, and into Angola. It is an easy, very drought-tolerant succulent for full sun and very sharp drainage: water it sparingly, because OVERWATERING in wet or cold soil is what rots and kills it. It is FROST-TENDER (RHS rates it about H3), so in cold-winter climates it is grown in a pot under cover and kept nearly dry through winter. Honest safety flag: Cotyledon orbiculata is seriously TOXIC - it contains cardiac glycosides and is a well-known cause of fatal "krimpsiekte" poisoning in grazing livestock, and it is toxic to people and pets too, so grow it strictly as an ornamental and keep it well away from animals and children.

An upright, frost-tender warm-season annual mallow domesticated in West Africa and now grown throughout the tropics for its edible calyces (GBIF). It carries red stems, lobed leaves, and pale-yellow hibiscus flowers, but the prize is the fleshy, deep-red CALYCES that swell around the seed pod after each flower fades - the source of the famous ruby "hibiscus" / roselle / bissap tea, syrups, and jam. The young leaves are also eaten as a sour potherb. It needs a long hot season and full sun to flower and set its calyces, and because it is short-day it flowers only as the nights lengthen in autumn, so in cool-summer climates it may run out of season before the harvest matures.

A rounded, slow-growing succulent shrub from the Western Cape of South Africa, the silver-leaved cousin of the common jade plant. Its thick, branching stems carry almost circular, fleshy leaves of a striking silvery-grey, edged in red where the sun hits them, and mature plants top out with domed clusters of pink-white star flowers. Like other Crassula it is an easy, drought-tolerant succulent that stores water in those plump leaves and uses CAM photosynthesis to cope with heat and dry air. POWO (Kew) places it as native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa, and it is frost-tender (about RHS H3), so outdoors it belongs only in warm, frost-free gardens (roughly USDA zones 9b-11) - everywhere colder it is a classic pot or house plant. It wants full sun to keep the silver colour and red margins, very sharp drainage, and only sparing water: overwatering and cold, wet soil are what rot and kill it, far more than any drought. The leaves are mildly toxic if eaten, to people and to pets, so it is grown for looks, not the table.

Aloe maculata (soap aloe, also called zebra aloe; long sold as Aloe saponaria) is a clumping, stemless succulent from southern Africa with broad, triangular leaves marked by distinctive "H-shaped" pale spots. It is grown for its flat-topped racemes of tubular flowers in shades of orange-red to coral and yellow, held on tall branched stalks that draw sunbirds, bees, and other insects. A tough, drought- and salt-tolerant groundcover that spreads by suckers, it suits rock gardens, dry borders, coastal plantings, and containers in warm climates. It is frost-tender: the RHS rates it H1C (roughly USDA 9b-11), so leaves are damaged below freezing and it needs protection or indoor wintering where frosts occur. The leaf gel is used traditionally for skin and other ailments, but the plant is recorded as harmful if eaten (handle with care; seeds are reputedly poisonous), so treat it as not for casual consumption around people and pets.

Spekboom (Portulacaria afra), the elephant bush, is a soft-wooded, much-branched succulent shrub with red-brown stems and small, rounded, glossy, jade-green leaves. GBIF places it native to the dry thicket of the Eastern Cape and Karoo of South Africa, where it is a keystone of Subtropical Thicket and a staple browse of elephants. It is one of the toughest, most drought-tolerant and most forgiving of succulents - happy in full sun to light shade with sharp drainage and only occasional water. Honesty matters: it is FROST-TENDER, so RHS rates Portulacaria afra tender (about H3), and in cold-winter areas it is grown in a pot or as a clipped indoor or patio plant. OVERWATERING in cold, wet soil is the main way it dies. It is famous as a carbon-capture plant: its switchable CAM photosynthesis fixes carbon efficiently in heat and drought, so it is widely planted for carbon sequestration and thicket restoration. The slightly tart, lemony leaves are edible in small amounts and are eaten raw in salads in South Africa.

The spider plant is the classic, almost foolproof houseplant: a rosette of arching, grassy leaves striped green and creamy white that sends out long, thin, wiry stems dangling baby plantlets - the "spiderettes" that give it part of its charm - making it a hanging-basket favourite. Native to tropical and southern Africa (POWO), it is one of the most widely grown houseplants in the world. It is frost-tender and grown indoors in most climates (winter-hardy outdoors only in USDA zones 9b-11), but it is also one of the most forgiving plants you can keep: it tolerates a wide range of light and watering and propagates effortlessly. A welcome contrast within this houseplant group - it is famously PET-SAFE, listed as non-toxic to cats and dogs by the ASPCA. Like other popular houseplants, its "air-purifying" reputation is overstated.

Bulbine frutescens is a fast-growing, clump-forming evergreen perennial from southern Africa, grown for its grey-green, fleshy, almost grassy succulent leaves and near-continuous spikes of star-shaped yellow or orange flowers tipped with distinctive fluffy stamens. It spreads readily by rooting low stems to form a dense, drought-tough groundcover (roughly 4 to 20 inches tall but 3.3 to 4.9 feet wide), making it a strong choice for sunny borders, dry banks, gravel gardens and containers. The clear leaf gel is a well-known folk remedy applied topically to burns, blisters, insect bites and minor skin irritations, and the plant is regarded as non-toxic to people and pets. The load-bearing caution is frost-tenderness: RHS rates it H3 (hardy only to about 23 to 34°F), so outside roughly USDA zones 9b-11 it must be grown in containers and overwintered frost-free or treated as a tender bedding plant. It is not known to be invasive, though its vigorous self-rooting spread means it can colonise open ground quickly in mild, frost-free climates. Give it full sun and sharp drainage and it is otherwise low-maintenance, pest-free and disease-free.

String of buttons is a rambling South African succulent (Crassulaceae) native to rocky slopes and thicket vegetation in the Cape Provinces and KwaZulu-Natal, where it scrambles through shrubs on long, unbranched stems. In frost-free gardens (USDA zones 9b–11b) it is a textural ground cover, rockery plant, or spiller in containers; everywhere colder it is a houseplant or frost-protected patio succulent. The honest catch is twofold: it is frost-tender and will be killed or disfigured by a hard freeze, and - like its toxic genus-mates such as the jade plant - it is best treated as toxic to cats and dogs, so it is not a safe choice for pet-accessible plantings.

Tiger aloe (Gonialoe variegata, syn. Aloe variegata) is a compact, evergreen succulent native to the arid Karoo region of South Africa and Namibia, where it grows in semi-shaded rock crevices with sharp-draining sandy or gravelly soil. In gardens it excels as a bold container specimen or focal-point succulent, prized for its spirally arranged dark-green leaves banded with irregular white spots and its tall orange flower spikes that sunbirds mob in the wild. The honest catch is frost-tenderness: this plant cannot survive temperatures below 41°F and must be overwintered under glass in all but the warmest frost-free climates - and every part of the plant is toxic to cats, dogs, and livestock via anthraquinone glycosides in the latex layer.