Get to know 20 plants selected from Vanuatu. Discover their scientific names, identifying features and growing needs.
Codiaeum variegatum
Codiaeum variegatum, commonly known as croton, is a striking evergreen shrub grown primarily for its bold, leathery leaves. The leaves come in a dazzling array of colors including green, yellow, orange, red, and purple, often with variegate
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Asplenium nidus
An evergreen fern forming a striking rosette of strap-shaped, undivided, bright green, fronds to 1.2m in length
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Carica papaya
A tree-like, evergreen,herbaceous plant that can reach 6m in tropical conditions. The single, upright stem is topped with a palm-like spread of large, long stemmed, deeply divided leaves. Cream, scented flowers, which may be male, female or
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Cotoneaster horizontalis
Low-growing, spreading, deciduous shrub to 90cm tall and 1.5m in width, with distinctive, flat, herringbone patterned sprays of foliage bearing small glossy dark green leaves that turn orange and red in autumn. Pink-tinged white flowers in
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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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Dracaena fragrans
An upright, evergreen, tropical shrub with cane-like stems and glossy, strap-shaped leaves to 40cm long. Its slender habit and tolerance of a range of conditions make it a popular houseplant
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Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
A compact evergreen shrub with ovate to broadly lance-shaped glossy dark green leaves. Single 5-petalled flowers 10cm across with yellow anthered red stamens are produced from the leaf axils from summer to autumn, though in cultivation semi
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Ipomoea batatas
A variable species of twining perennial climber, often grown as an annual, with some cultivars valued for their edible roots. Leaves are usually ovate to heart-shaped, sometimes lobed and sometimes flushed with purple. Funnel-shaped flowers
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Nandina domestica
N. domestica is an elegant small evergreen shrub of upright, bamboo-like habit, the compound leaves with lanceolate leaflets, purplish when young and again in winter. Small white flowers in large panicles are followed by red berries
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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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Yucca aloifolia
an evergreen shrub with a simple or sparsely branched stem bearing a terminal rosette of sharp-pointed, sword-shaped leaves, and nodding, bell-shaped white or purple-tinged flowers 8cm across in a terminal panicle
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Mimosa pudica
M. pudica is a spiny annual or short-lived evergreen perennial of low, spreading habit, with divided leaves that are sensitive to touch, and fluffy pale pink or pale purple flowerheads in summer
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Albizia julibrissin
A medium-sized, deciduous tree with a broad, spreading crown. The large, mimosa-like leaves are composed of many small leaflets. Fluffy, greenish-yellow flowers with long stamens open on the top of the crown in summer, followed by clusters
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Osteospermum ecklonis
O. ecklonis is an erect or spreading evergreen shrub or subshrub, up to 1m high, with aromatic grey-green leaves, up to 10cm long, which may be linear-oblong, elliptic or lance-shaped, and entire, partly or wholly toothed, and flowerheads,
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Oxalis triangularis
A clump-forming, bulbous perennial between 15-30cm tall when in flower, with clover-like leaves with triangular leaflets, green or dark purple with flushes of pale or darker purple. Slender stems bear umbels of funnel-shaped white or pale
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Alpinia purpurata
A tender perennial up to 4m high, with lance-shaped, slightly glossy green leaves to 80cm long. In summer, produces long, semi-upright flower spikes, with small white flowers surrounded by overlapping, bright red bracts
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Delonix regia
A tropical, evergreen tree to 10m tall and wide in its native Madagascar. It bears elegant, fern-like leaves and clusters of exotic-looking, bright red flowers. In frost-prone areas grow in a temperate greenhouse as foliage plants, since th
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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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Catharanthus roseus
A woody-based evergreen perennial, to 45cm in height, with somewhat fleshy stems bearing ovate leaves and 5-petalled flowers, to 4cm across, pink, red or white in colour
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Lantana camara
L. camara is an evergreen shrub with sometimes prickly stems bearing wrinkled, ovate leaves and terminal clusters of salver-shaped flowers 1cm across, opening yellow and ageing to red, from late spring to autumn
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