(Aechmea, Variegated Mexican Bromeliad)

Beautiful apple-green leaves banded with creamy light yellow and teethed edges in the shaped of a mounding fountain describes the variegated Mexican bromeliad's foliage and the flower spike is a candle-like spire of pink flowers and white fruits. A tender perennial bromeliad that can be grown as an epiphyte (mounted upon another plant) or propped in soil, it is native from Mexico southward into extreme northern South America.

The long, broad, strappy leaves are a light green with wide outer...

(Aechmea, Orland's Bromeliad)

A carnival of color and texture in its foliage, Orland's bromeliad has apple-green leaves with dark red stripes and speckles and eventually forms a red flower spike with yellow blossoms. A tender tropical perennial bromeliad that is an epiphyte (grows upon other plants like trees), it is native to southern Brazil. It may also be propped in well-draining soil to look ground-dwelling but ideally protected from frost.

The wide strap-like leaves form a vase-shaped rosette that holds water in the...

(Aechmea, Ensign Aechmea, Ensign Bromeliad, Ensign Orland's Aechmea Bromeliad)

A carnival of color and texture in its foliage, the Ensign bromeliad has apple-green and white leaves with pink-red stripes and speckles and eventually forms a red flower spike with yellow blossoms. A tender tropical perennial bromeliad that is an epiphyte (grows upon other plants like trees), it is native to southern Brazil. It may also be propped in well-draining soil to look ground-dwelling but it is very tender to frosts.

The wide strap-like leaves form a vase-shaped rosette that holds water...

(Aerides, Orchid)

The rich green foliage of this unique orchid sits atop a chain-like mass of long roots and bears a cluster of deliciously fragrant gold and fuchsia flowers in early summer. Houllet's aerides is a fairly large evergreen epiphytic orchid native to the hot, sultry lowlands of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It has a growth habit that is called vandaceous (like Vanda orchids) with extremely long aerial roots and a fan-like leaf mass atop the stem-like pseudobulb.

The leaves are short,...

(Aerides, Orchid)

The graceful aerides-with-five-wounds orchid bears a fragrant drooping cluster of small, ivory and fuchsia-violet spotted blossoms in summer and autumn. A large evergreen epiphytic orchid, this species is native to forested tropical highlands of Malaysia and the Philippines. It grows from a short pseudobulb with dangling aerial roots that clasp to tree trunks for support.

The medium green leaves are leathery and strap-like with two lobes at their ends. In early summer into fall, a long drooping...

(Basket Vine, Hot Flash Lipstick Plant, Lipstick Plant)

One of the prettiest and easiest to grow of the lipstick plants, 'Hot Flash' is a compact plant with large orange-red blooms with light color striations. The flowers are held upright in clusters at the ends of the branches. This vigorous, floriferous hybrid is a cross between Aeschynanthus evrardii and Aeschynanthus hildebrandii and a favorite plant for containers or hanging baskets. It was hybridized by B. Schwarz in 1984.

This tropical is a semi-trailing evergreen perennial...

(Zebra Basket Vine)

Imagine walking through the humid rainforests of Southeast Asia and encountering a plant with mottled, snake-like leaves dangling above your head in a tree. You eyes may fool you to think the sprawling, dangling stems are indeed a preying critter ready to attack. The zebra basket vine poses no such threat, but will intrigue you with its foliage and tubular flowers. This mounding to semi-trailing tender perennial subshrub is native to Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia. It is epiphytic - growing on another...

(Lipstick Basket Vine, Lipstick Plant)

Vibrant lipstick-red flowers adorn the sprawling stems of this tree-dweller ("epiphyte") from moist forests of Malaysia. In nature it grows in trunk crotches and other arboreal niches where leaf litter accumulates.

Pairs of glossy deep green leaves crowd the long, lax stems of this evergreen perennial. They may blush burgundy-purple in relatively hot, sunny sites. Pairs of dark red to nearly black buds develop at the branch tips, opening into tubular, hairy, vivid red blooms with five lobes,...

(East African Yellowwood, Fern Pine)

The graceful form of fern pine is accented by the linear, bluish green leaves that project from the branches much like the leaves of a lily. This tall, tender evergreen tree is native to higher elevations of subtropical eastern Africa. Unlike other conifers such as junipers, that have scale-like needles, fern pine leaves are smooth, flat and narrow, arranged spirally around gently pendent branches. Plants are dioecious, being either male or female. Male plants produce small, tan, finger-like cones...

(African Lily, Blue Danube Lily-of-the-Nile, Lily-of-the-Nile)

The vigorous lily-of-the-Nile, 'Blue Danube', bears large rounded clusters of light violet-blue flowers on very tall stems. Often listed as a variant of the South African Agapanthus africanus, it is actually a hybrid. Where hardy, it is best grown in the landscape but in colder climates it may be maintained as a container specimen if provided a large spacious pot. Flowering is most profuse from late-spring through summer.

The long strap-like leaves of this tender perennial are medium...