Get to know 15 plants selected from Khomas. Discover their scientific names, identifying features and growing needs.
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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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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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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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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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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Cotyledon orbiculata
An evergreen, succulent shrub growing to 100cm tall. Its grey-green, oval leaves are coated with a white wax and sometimes have a red edge. Small, bell-shaped, orange-redflowers are borne on stems up to 70cm long in late summer and autumn
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Schefflera arboricola
Schefflera arboricola, commonly known as the Dwarf Umbrella Tree, is an evergreen shrub native to Taiwan. It features palmate compound leaves typically composed of 7-9 leaflets, glossy and leathery. The plant has a compact, bushy habit with
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Carpobrotus edulis
An evergreen, spreading or trailing shrub with succulent stems that can spread to form mats 3m or more in length. Fleshy, curved leaves are triangular in cross section and up to around 15cm long. Solitary yellow flowers fading to pink to 15
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Pachypodium lamerei
P. lamerei is a succulent shrub or small tree with thick, thorny stems bearing a cluster of narrow leaves near the apex, and terminal clusters of yellow-throated white flowers 10cm across in summer
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Plumbago auriculata
P. auriculata is an evergreen shrub to 4m or more (with support), with slender, scandent stems bearing light green, spoon-shaped leaves and terminal racemes of sky-blue, long-tubed flowers 15mm across
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Mirabilis jalapa
M. jalapa is a bushy, tuberous perennial often grown as an annual, with fragrant flowers opening in the afternoon, in a wide range of colours, and sometimes bicoloured
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Crassula muscosa
A spreading, perennial succulent to 30cm high, forming a dense bush of branching stems with tightly overlapping green leaves. Bears tiny, tubular yellow-green flowers along the stems in spring.
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Kalanchoe delagoensis
Upright perennial succulent to 1m tall with almost cylindrical, grey-green leaves spotted red-brown and producing plantlets at the tips of the leaves; panicles of tubular or bell-shaped purple-grey to pale orange-yellow flowers are borne in
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Sonchus oleraceus
An upright biennial to 1.5m, with a strong taproot, hollow stems, long, narrow, lobed, wavy leaves edged with soft spines. Clusters of yellow, dandelion-like flowers in summer are followed by fluffy, white seedheads
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Phyla nodiflora
A mat-forming perennial to around 15cm high, with a woody base, creeping stems up to 90cm long, and oval to spoon-shaped leaves that are serrated at the tips. Dense flowerheads, with a purple centre surrounded by tiny white flowers, are bor
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