(Chinese Evergreen)

Chinese evergreen is a small, upright, evergreen perennial native from South China to North Thailand. It is grown for its attractive, lance-like, glossy dark green leaves with wavy margins. Displays insignificant greenish white spathe and spadix flowers appear sporadically throughout the year.

This plant prefers well drained soils and is tolerant of very low light conditions. In temperate regions it may be planted as a tropical tender perennial and makes a lovely houseplant. Where hardy, it makes...

(Aglaonema, Chinese Evergreen)

The showy, tropical Aglaonema nitidum is a popular small houseplant or landscape plant for shaded, frost-free gardens. Its lovely evergreen foliage is dark green blotched and streaked with creamy white markings. This Southeast Asian native is a true tropical forest dweller that thrives in the understory of hot and humid locations. It is rhizomatous and will spread over time.

The long, lance-shaped, leathery leaf blades of Chinese evergreen are dark green marked with lighter green or...

(Chinese Evergreen, Painted Drop Tongue, Silver Queen Painted Drop Tongue)

The dense, upright leaves of 'Silver Queen' are bright green with marbled silvery markings on top and smooth green undersides. It is a favorite foliage plant for interior-scaping as well as tropical landscaping and has been given an Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The showy, tropical Aglaonema nitidum is a popular small houseplant or landscape plant for shaded, frost-free gardens. Its lovely evergreen foliage is dark green blotched and streaked with creamy...

(Aglaonema)

Aglaonema is a genus of more than 20 species and many cultivated varieties and hybrids. The members of the genus are naturally distributed across the warm, humid, tropical forest of Asia. The cultivated varieties are highly prized as easy, tough indoor plants, selected for their striking leaves and used as houseplants, conservatory specimens, container plants, or bedding plants where growing conditions are favorable.

These plants are evergreen, tender perennials. Most grow fleshy stems...

(Willow Myrtle)

Beautiful and drought resistant, this small to medium-sized, semi-weeping evergreen tree from western Australia makes an excellent plant for gardens where winters and summers are mild. The long, lance shaped, bright green leaves dangle from weeping branchlets, giving the tree a willowy appearance. The leaves smell of peppermint. Masses of small white flowers crowd the branches in late spring and early summer. Plants eventually form a dense wide-spreading canopy and root system, making them unsuitable...

(Jervis Bay Afterdark Willow Myrtle, Willow Myrtle)

Beautiful and drought resistant, this small to medium-sized, semi-weeping evergreen tree from western Australia makes an excellent plant for gardens where winters and summers are mild. The long, lance shaped, bright green leaves dangle from weeping branchlets, giving the tree a willowy appearance. The leaves smell of peppermint. Masses of small white flowers crowd the branches in late spring and early summer. Plants eventually form a dense wide-spreading canopy and root system, making them unsuitable...

(Coyore, Macaw Palm)

This small, graceful, but heavily armed palm tree is found in rain forests and seasonally dry woodlands of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the Lesser Antilles.

Borne atop a single, slender, gray to tan trunk that brandishes numerous long black spines, the enormous, arching, ferny leaves have numerous narrowly lance-shaped leaflets. The leaflets arise from a long central axis known as a rachis. The rachis and the undersides of the leaves are also heavily armed, as is the long leaf stem ("petiole")....

(Begonialeaf Alangium, Chinese Alangium)

Lovely green leaves with short pointed lobes adorn the zig-zagged branches of Chinese alangium. Blooming in early summer and again in mid-autumn, the small oval fruits turn dark blue in autumn, too. A large shrub to small tree that is evergreen in frost-free climates but deciduous elsewhere, it is native to a large expanse of southern Asia's Himalayas eastward into the highlands of southeast Asia. Natural variant forms can also be found in eastern Africa.

The leaves are rounded when young, having...

(Alcantarea)

No tropical garden is complete without a giant alcantarea! Larger than a bushel basket, the rosette of strappy light green leaves eventually forms a towering red flower stalk with curving yellow bracts and ivory flowers. This evergreen perennial bromeliad is a lithophyte (growing among and upon rocks) native to the montane cliffs in extreme southeastern Brazil.

Each leaf is light green, occasionally with speckles or a casting of gray, and strap-like. It tapers to a soft point while the base...

(Alcantarea, Fragrant Alcantarea)

No tropical garden is complete without a fragrant alcantarea! Larger than a bushel basket, the rosette of strappy light green and silver-banded leaves eventually forms a towering red flower stalk with canary yellow flowers. This evergreen perennial bromeliad is a lithophyte (growing among and upon rocks) native to the montane cliffs in extreme southeastern Brazil.

Each pointed, strappy leaf is light green to silver with phantom bandings. It tapers to a soft point while the base of the leaf congregates...