(Calico Plant, Joyweed)

Purple Knight joyweed is a tender perennial from the West Indies and Brazil grown for it rich purple foliage and heat tolerance. The leaves are lance to oval shaped with toothed margins. The insignificant flowers are white, without petals, grouped together and look like clover. Purple Knight joyweed grows true to type when planted by seed.

Joyweed is frost sensitive and grown as a perennial only in very warm areas. Grow it as an annual, houseplant or greenhouse specimen in cooler climates. Plant...

(Calico Plant, Joyweed, Royal Tapestry Joyweed)

The mounding, spreading, tender perennial joyweed, 'Royal Tapestry', has fine, richly hued foliage and super heat tolerance. Its small, lance-shaped leaves are borne on burgundy stems and may be red, copper, purple or burgundy, depending on the season and sun and heat exposure. Throughout the year, it produces clover-like clusters of small, white flowers, but these are insignificant and offer little interest when compared to the attractive foliage.

For best foliar color, plant Brazilian...

(Calico Plant, Christmas Clover, Joyweed)

Christmas Clover joyweed is a tender perennial from the West Indies and Brazil grown for it deep maroon foliage and heat tolerance. The leaves are lance to oval shaped with toothed margins. The insignificant flowers are white, without petals, grouped together and look like clover.

Joyweed is frost sensitive and grown as a perennial only in very warm areas. Grow it as an annual, houseplant or greenhouse specimen in cooler climates. Plant in full sun, bright light and heat improve the color intensity...

(Thread Alternanthera)

A native of Mexico and South America, joyweed is an evergreen tender perennial commonly grown for its colorful leaves as a bedding or container plant. Its fine to medium textured narrow, glossy leaves may be bright green, pink, bronze or burgundy-red, depending on the cultivar. Flowering occurs in fall and is insignificant. Two popular selections include 'Red Threads', which has fine, burgundy-red leaves, and the colorful variegated variety 'Party Time', which has leaves marked with green, cream...

(Snowball Alternanthera, Thread Alternanthera)

The cultivar ‘Snowball’ is especially eye-catching Joseph’s Coat. The gray-green leaves have highly varied markings in white, ranging from streaks and broad blotches to half a leaf. Some leaves are entirely white or entirely green.

Joseph’s Coat is a low-growing tropical perennial valued for its bushy habit and glossy, colorful leaves. It is used in containers as a contrast or accent plant or grown in the garden during warm months as a groundcover or edging plant. The white flowers are small...

(Love-Lies-Bleeding)

Though grown in American gardens primarily for its curious tail-like clusters of colorful flowers, this large annual has long been a staple grain in the northern Andes, where it originated. Once more popular than corn, amaranth grain and greens fed the Incas for thousands of years, and are still a vital crop for peoples of the Andes. Two other species of amaranth are important grain (and ornamental) plants: Amaranthus cruentus and Amaranthus hypochondriacus.

This fast-growing,...

(Amherstia, Pride-of-Burma)

One of the tropic's most beautifully shaped flowering trees, the pride-of-Burma is also one of the rarest plants since it does not readily produce seeds. Some plant collectors refer to it as the "queen of flowering trees." This slow-growing evergreen is native only to the monsoonal teak forests of Burma in Southeast Asia. It develops a rounded, wide-spreading canopy with cascading branches and foliage. Today, it is considered a highly endangered plant species, if not already extinct in the wild....

(Voodoo Lily)

A bizarre, summer-growing plant with malodorous flowers, this tuberous perennial is native from northern India eastward to Myanmar (Burma). Considered not as bad smelling as others, this species is among the most striking in bloom, with upright, pinkish spathes on mottled stalks in spring. A large compound leaf arises on a mottled stem in late spring and persists until fall, when it collapses almost literally overnight. In autumn, small bulbils which can grow into plants form on the leaf margins.

This...

(Titan Arum)

This gigantic, summer-growing plant from Sumatra has perhaps the largest inflorescence and tuber in the plant kingdom. In late spring, if the female plant is old enough, a thick, tall flower stalk emerges and unfurls a multicolored spathe and spadix with a rotting, foetid stench. It is pollinated by flies and carrion beetles. In summer, an immense leaf stalk reaches skyward with a huge, umbrella-like leaf that is very lobed and attractive.

This singular plant needs a warm, alkaline, well drained...

(Acajou, Cashew)

This small, broad-crowned, evergreen tree is cultivated throughout the tropics for its tasty fruits, as well as for numerous other by-products. It is native to lower latitudes of the New World.

Large, leathery, elliptical leaves crowd the crooked, gray-barked branches of this fast-growing tree. The leaves are ribbed with conspicuous, deep-set veins, and are often notched at the tip. Many-flowered clusters of pale green, red-tinged, five-lobed blooms appear at the branch tips from late spring...