Get to know 20 plants selected from Botswana. Discover their scientific names, identifying features and growing needs.
Psidium guajava
An evergreen shrub or small tree up to 6m tall with prominently-veined, ovate to oblong leaves up to 15cm long with serrated margins. White flowers to 2.5cm across with brush-like clusters of long stamens are borne singly or in small groups
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Capsicum annuum
This is the wild plant from which many of our cultivated sweet peppers and chillies have been bred. It shows a wide range of fruit shapes, colours, sizes and degree of capsaicin production - from where the heat may or may not be felt. It ha
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Sorghum bicolor
An upright plant with green strappy leaves. Flower spikes are covered in small, yellowish-green flowers, followed by pale, sometimes rusty coloured seeds. Seeds can ripen in the UK if given a long hot summer. Can be grown in the UK as a ten
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Crassula ovata
A bushy succulent evergreen sub-shrub growing slowly to 2m, with rounded fleshy dark green leaves often edged with red, and flat clusters of small starry white or light pink flowers in late summer
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Tagetes minuta
A tall, upright, half-hardy annual to 1.5m high with deeply-divided, aromatic foliage and heads of small white flowers with yellow centres. Often grown for its reputed ability to repel nematodes and kill weeds by means of root secretions ra
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Cymbidium sinense
A small-sized, evergreen orchid producing a small clump of egg-shaped pseudobulbs. Each pseudobulb is 2-6cm long and 2cm wide and is enclosed with broader, leaf-bearing sheaths. Leaves are linear, 60-90cm long and 2-3cm wide. Three to five
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Elaeagnus pungens
A strong-growing, wide-spreading evergreen shrub, to 5m in height, with some spiny, but mainly spineless branches. Leaves, are green and glossy above and matt white underneath, with brown scales. Clusters of small but extremely-fragrant, si
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Liquidambar styraciflua
L. styraciflua is a deciduous tree to 20m tall, broadly conical in outline, with rather glossy, maple-like, 5 to 7-lobed leaves which turn to shades of orange, crimson and purple in autumn
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Portulacaria afra
A slow-growing, evergreen succulent shrub with small, fleshy, glossy green leaves. Mature stems have greyish bark and young stems are often flushed with red. Clusters of tiny, saucer-shaped pale pink flowers are produced at the tips of the
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Spathiphyllum wallisii
S. wallisii is an evergreen perennial with erect, lance-shaped, glossy dark green leaves, and ovate white flowering spathes to 15cm in length, each with a slender cream spadix within
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Rosa banksiae
Tall, vigorous, semi-evergreen climber reaching 7.5m or more in a warm, sheltered location, with thornless, slender stems and rich green leaves. Small, fragrant, white or pale yellow blooms to 2.5cm across appear in late spring; China 1807
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Rubus ulmifolius
A vigorous, fast-growing shrub with arching, sometimes thorny stems to 2.5m long, and ovate, lightly toothed green leaves with white felting underneath. Produces clusters of rounded pink flowers in summer which are followed by small, dry fr
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Phaseolus vulgaris
The wild common bean from which a vast number of edible beans have been bred, including all the 'French' beans. They are annual, twining climbers with green tri-foliate leaves, though many selected varieties are dwarf. The flowers are mostl
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Schlumbergera truncata
A cactus with erect stems that then become pendent-forming as a bushy, trailing plant with flattened and toothed, oblong stem segments. Flowers produced at the stem tips in autumn and winter are usually in shades of purple, pink or red
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Solanum lycopersicum
This is the original plant from which all know varieties of tomato have been bred. The original species is quite a large, branching and climbing plant growing up to 2m tall that is perennial subshrub in its native tropical habitat. The stem
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Cannabis sativa is a fast-growing annual herb with an upright, branching habit. Its leaves are palmately compound, typically with 5-7 lanceolate, serrated leaflets. Small greenish flowers appear in summer and autumn; female plants produce r
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Aloe arborescens
A bushy, evergreen, multi-headed, succulent shrub to 4m tall. Stems are topped by rosettes of long, slender, curved, blue-green leaves with toothed margins. Racemes of tubular red flowers are borne from late winter into spring
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Ansellia africana
A large sized, epiphytic, evergreen orchid with upright, cane-like pseudobulbs. Six or seven, green, leathery leaves are alternately arranged on the upper half of each pseudobulb. Each lance-shaped leaf is 15-50cm long and 1.5-5cm wide. The
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Anthurium andraeanum
An evergreen perennial with ovate to arrow-shaped, dark green leaves to 30cm in length, and ovate or heart-shaped, bright red spathes with a light yellow spadix, appearing throughout the year
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Astrophytum myriostigma
A cactus forming a spherical or shortly columnar, ribbed grey-green spineless plant to 20cm tall; light yellow flowers 5cm across, sometimes reddish in centre, open in summer
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