Veracruz moist forests

Achiote, also sold as annatto or lipstick tree, is a fast-growing evergreen shrub or small tree native from Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina, and planted across the tropics for its seeds. Clusters of pink or white flowers about 2 inches across, like single wild roses, open at the branch tips and are followed by clusters of red to red-brown capsules covered in soft bristles, which split open to show seeds coated in a waxy red-orange layer. That coating is annatto: the coloring and mild seasoning behind achiote paste and sazón, the yellow-orange of many cheeses, butters, and margarines, and the red body paint and lipstick that gave the plant its English name. In a garden it usually stays 6 to 12 feet tall and wide as a specimen or informal hedge, though as a tree it can reach 20 to 30 feet. It is frost-tender and needs a frost-free climate: it is hardy outdoors in USDA zones 10a-12b and grown elsewhere in a large container or conservatory that comes indoors before frost. Outside its native range it has naturalized on many Pacific islands, sparingly so in Hawaii, and in the Galapagos, where the Charles Darwin Foundation rates it potentially invasive.

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).

One of the world's most spectacular flowering trees and, in the same breath, one of its most dangerous invaders. Spathodea campanulata is a large, fast-growing tropical tree native to the moist forests of West and Central Africa (GBIF), carrying a dense crown of glossy compound leaves topped by showy, upturned clusters of big, frilly, scarlet-to-orange, tulip-shaped flowers (the boat-shaped buds hold water). It is glorious - and it is a serious invasive. The African tulip tree is listed among the IUCN "100 of the world's worst invasive species"; outside its native range it has overrun wet-tropical forests across the Pacific, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia and Australia, and its flowers can be lethal to native bees. Plant it ONLY where it is genuinely native or where it cannot escape, and first check that it is not prohibited locally - do not plant it in any tropical region where it can naturalise. It is frost-tender (USDA 10a-11), fast, and wants full sun and moisture; in cold-winter climates it is grown only as a tender container specimen kept frost-free. It is an ornamental, not a food plant.

Aji pepper is the South American chili species behind aji amarillo, Lemon Drop, Bishop's crown and Brazil's dedo-de-moça - one of the five domesticated chili peppers, and a different plant from the familiar garden pepper (Capsicum annuum) and the habanero (Capsicum chinense). It is a perennial shrub native from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru through Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina and central and southern Brazil, and where it can live for years it grows taller than most garden peppers, up to about 6.6 feet. Its white to cream flowers are typically marked with green or gold, and its fruits, which usually hang down in cultivated forms, come in an unusually wide range of shapes, from long tapered pods to the crown-shaped Bishop's crown. Heat runs from nearly heatless types to hot ones; aji amarillo is rated around 30,000-50,000 Scoville units. It is frost tender, so outside nearly frost-free climates it is grown as a warm-weather annual.

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.

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.

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.

Anise-scented sage is a tall, upright perennial in the mint family (Lamiaceae), native to Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. NC State Extension and Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder describe a bushy, square-stemmed plant 2 to 5 feet tall and wide that carries spikes of deep blue, two-lipped flowers with purple-blue calyxes from July into fall; NC State calls it a reliable nectar source for hummingbirds and butterflies, and notes that carpenter bees rob its nectar by biting a hole in the floral tube. The 'anise-scented' name is only partly earned: Wikipedia describes 'an anise scent when crushed,' but Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder says the bruised foliage has a very mild aroma with 'very little if any anise scent.' It spreads by tuberous roots that let it reproduce vegetatively (NC State Extension), so it fills a space rather than staying in a tidy clump. It is winter hardy only to about USDA zone 8a: farther north, grow it as an annual or overwinter cuttings indoors, though NC State notes the 'Black and Blue' cultivar is hardier and will survive milder zone 7 winters if well mulched. Neither NC State nor Missouri Botanical Garden documents an edible use or a toxicity hazard. NC State records, as ethnobotanical history, that the Guarani people of Brazil used it as a sedative; that is not a recommendation to take it, so treat it as a non-food ornamental. It has also naturalized outside South America (Wikipedia records it in New Zealand and Chile), so where winters are mild enough for it to persist outdoors, check your local weed or invasive-plant list before planting it.

A tender perennial from Madagascar grown across temperate North America as a heat-loving summer annual - a mounding 6-18 inch plant in the dogbane family covered in flat five-lobed phlox-like flowers from June to frost. The species blooms rosy-pink to red with a darker mauve throat, and it shrugs off the hot, humid weather that wilts most bedding plants. Every part of the plant is poisonous: it is the natural source of the vinca alkaloids used in chemotherapy.

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 frost-tender broadleaf evergreen tree of the laurel family, native to Mexico and Central America and grown across the tropics and subtropics for its buttery, pear-shaped fruit. Glossy dark-green elliptic leaves 4 to 8 inches long clothe a tree that reaches 30 to 60 feet, hung with greenish-yellow flower panicles that give way to large single-seeded berries. Hardy only in USDA zones 10-12 - north of that it is an indoor curiosity easily sprouted from a pit, but one that rarely fruits.

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.

The classic German or common-flag iris - the presumed parent of most modern bearded-iris cultivars, probably native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean and naturalized widely. Each stalk carries up to six large, usually fragrant flowers in spring: three erect lilac standards above three purple falls marked with brown veins, white bases, and the signature yellow "beard." It has no bulb, spreading instead by creeping rhizomes that form large clumps, with sword-shaped basal foliage to about two feet.

A woody, deciduous flowering shrub in the Hydrangeaceae, native to Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia and long grown as the classic "hortensia" or French hydrangea. NC State Extension describes a rounded shrub 3 to 6 feet tall and wide with large opposite, simple, toothed leaves (4 to 8 inches long) and big rounded mop-head or flat lacecap flower clusters in late spring and summer in white, pink, blue, or purple. Famously, flower color tracks soil chemistry - acidic soils push the blooms blue and alkaline soils turn them pink. It wants protection from hot afternoon sun and steady moisture, making it a mainstay of shaded foundation plantings and woodland borders.

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.

Boxelder (Acer negundo) is the maple that does not look like a maple. Instead of a single lobed leaf it carries compound leaves of three to five toothed leaflets, close enough to poison ivy that people regularly misidentify young shoots, and it is one of the very few dioecious maples - male and female flowers on separate trees, so only the females carry the familiar paired samaras. It is native across an extraordinary sweep of North America, from Maine to Manitoba and south to Florida, Texas and central Mexico, and it is genuinely at home on riverbanks and floodplains where its speed and flood tolerance are assets. In a garden it is usually a volunteer rather than a choice. It grows fast, breaks in storms, seeds everywhere, and hosts the boxelder bug, which overwinters on house walls in numbers that make it a household nuisance rather than a garden one. The case for it is narrow but real: it establishes on ground where better trees fail, in cold northern climates and on raw disturbed sites, and it is a documented larval host for cecropia and a valued early honey-bee forage.

Buddhist pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus) is a slow-growing evergreen conifer native to southern Japan, southern and eastern China, Taiwan, and northern Myanmar, long prized in East Asian gardens and feng shui traditions. In mild climates it makes a handsome, dense column of strap-like dark-green foliage suitable for hedging, topiary, or a statement specimen; it also tolerates container culture well. The honest catch is its frost-tenderness: plants are reliable only from zone 7b (about 10°F) southward, and a late cold snap in zone 7 can kill established specimens to the ground. Layered on that is its pace - growth is genuinely slow, so a screening hedge planted today may take 15-20 years to reach useful height.

A warm-season annual vine in the cucumber family grown for its sweet, aromatic netted melons - one of the six broadly accepted edible groups of the polymorphic Cucumis melo. Stiff-haired, rough-textured trailing stems climb 6 to 9 feet with the help of unbranched tendrils, carrying funnel-shaped yellow flowers that draw bees. Native to the Old World (Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, New Guinea, and Australia) and intolerant of frost, it is grown as an annual on the ground or on cages and trellises.

A tuberous-rooted member of the aster family native to Mexico and Central America, grown for showy summer-to-fall blooms in nearly every color except blue. Hybrids in commerce span ten flower-form groups (single, anemone, collarette, waterlily, decorative, fall, pompon, cactus, semi-cactus, and miscellaneous) and range from 1 to 6 feet tall. Winter-hardy only to USDA Zones 7-10; in colder regions the tubers are lifted in fall and stored frost-free, so most North American gardeners grow it as a summer annual.

A fast annual culinary herb grown for both its aromatic, feathery blue-green foliage and its pungent seeds. Stiff hollow stems rise 3 to 5 feet and carry large, flattened compound umbels of tiny yellow flowers in late summer. Native to Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, dill has naturalized across parts of North America. The showy umbels draw bees, wasps, lacewings, hover flies, and other beneficial insects, and the lacy foliage is a classic larval host for the black swallowtail butterfly.

A compact, warm-season annual cereal grass - finger millet, also known as ragi - grown for its tiny, exceptionally nutritious reddish grain. Its seed heads split into a cluster of incurved, finger-like spikes (the source of the name), and it is a hardy, storable staple of the East African highlands and South India. Honest reality: it is a frost-tender, warm-season annual for full sun, sown after the last frost once the soil is warm. It copes well with drought and poor soils and tolerates a wider range of altitude and rainfall than the other millets, and its gluten-free grain is rich in calcium and iron and stores for years - eaten as flour, porridge, and in brewing. Outside the tropics it is grown as a summer annual.

A compact, frost-tender warm-season annual from Mexico and Central America grown for its dense, fuzzy, thread-like ("flossy") flower clusters - most famously in soft true blue and lavender-blue, the trait that sets it apart from almost every other bedding annual, plus pink and white forms. It mounds into a clumping cushion 6 to 12 inches tall and about as wide, blooming from early summer until frost over soft, heart-shaped, slightly hairy leaves. It is easy and rewarding bedding, edging, and container color in full sun to part shade with steady moisture, but it is strictly look-don't-eat: the foliage and stems contain hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids and are toxic if ingested.

A tender warm-season culinary herb native to tropical Africa and Asia; grown as an annual in most US climates for fragrant edible leaves and as a kitchen-garden staple. Sweet basil is the species behind Genovese, Thai, and most ornamental purple basils.