Where your plants come from
Every plant on your shelf is a traveller. A Monstera is a Central American rainforest climber; a snake plant is a West African survivor; lavender is a Mediterranean hillside shrub. Knowing where a plant is from is the shortcut to keeping it alive - it tells you the light, water and warmth it was built for. Tap a region on the map, or search a plant below.
🗺️ Schematic - each dot marks a plant's home region, not an exact spot.
🌴 Central & South America
Warm, humid rainforests - the source of most of the big-leaved plants that thrive in a bright bathroom.
Swiss cheese plant (Monstera)
📍 Southern Mexico to Panama
Climbs rainforest trunks toward the light - the leaf holes shed heavy rain.
Heartleaf philodendron
📍 Central America & the Caribbean
A forest-floor climber, which is why it copes with lower light indoors.
Peace lily
📍 Tropical Americas
An understorey plant that flowers in shade - hence its patience with dim corners.
Prayer plant (Maranta)
📍 Brazilian rainforest
Folds its leaves up at night, the movement that earned its name.
Calathea
📍 South America (Brazil)
Grows under the canopy, so it dislikes direct sun and hard tap water.
Anthurium
📍 Tropical Central & South America
Its glossy 'flower' is a bract; many species grow perched on trees.
Nerve plant (Fittonia)
📍 Peruvian rainforest
A humidity lover from the forest floor - happiest in a terrarium.
Arrowhead vine (Syngonium)
📍 Tropical Americas
Changes leaf shape as it matures from ground cover to climber.
Dumb cane (Dieffenbachia)
📍 Caribbean & South America
A fast, leafy understorey plant of warm lowland forest.
Caladium
📍 Amazon basin
Grows from a tuber and rests in a dry-season dormancy.
Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera)
📍 Coastal mountains of SE Brazil
An epiphyte from misty forest - not a desert cactus at all.
Peperomia
📍 Tropical Central & South America
Many are small epiphytes with thick, water-storing leaves.
Inch plant (Tradescantia)
📍 Mexico & Central America
A vigorous trailer that roots from any node that touches soil.
Polka dot begonia
📍 Brazil
An angel-wing begonia from shaded, humid riverbanks.
Money tree (Pachira)
📍 Central & South American wetlands
A swamp tree, often sold with a braided trunk.
🌵 Mexico & the arid Southwest
Hot, dry, bright. Home to most cacti and many rosette succulents that want sun and sharp drainage.
Echeveria
📍 Semi-desert Mexico
A rosette succulent built to hoard water and shrug off drought.
Golden barrel cactus
📍 Central Mexico
Now rare in the wild, though common on windowsills.
Pincushion cactus (Mammillaria)
📍 Mexico & the SW United States
A small clumping cactus that rings itself with flowers.
Agave
📍 Mexico & the SW United States
Stores decades of energy, then flowers once and dies.
Poinsettia
📍 Southern Mexico
A large shrub in the wild; the red 'petals' are coloured leaves.
Ghost plant (Graptopetalum)
📍 Mexico
A pastel succulent that drops leaves which root themselves.
Zinnia
📍 Mexico
A heat-loving annual that keeps flowering the more you cut it.
Dahlia
📍 Mexico
The national flower of Mexico, grown there long before Europe met it.
Marigold (Tagetes)
📍 Mexico & Central America
Central to Day of the Dead long before it became a border staple.
Cosmos
📍 Mexico
An easy annual that self-sows in poor, sunny soil.
🌻 Temperate North America
Prairie and woodland natives - the tough, pollinator-friendly perennials of the cottage border.
Sunflower
📍 North America
Domesticated by Indigenous peoples thousands of years ago.
Purple coneflower (Echinacea)
📍 Central & eastern North America
A prairie perennial and a magnet for bees and butterflies.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
📍 North America
A tough meadow daisy that thrives on neglect.
Bee balm (Monarda)
📍 Eastern North America
Minty-scented and loved by hummingbirds.
Garden phlox
📍 Eastern United States
A fragrant border perennial of late summer.
Milkweed (Asclepias)
📍 North America
The only plant monarch caterpillars will eat.
Coreopsis (tickseed)
📍 North America
A long-flowering prairie daisy for hot, dry spots.
New England aster
📍 Eastern & central North America
Feeds pollinators when little else is still in bloom.
🫒 Mediterranean & West Asia
Hot dry summers, mild wet winters. The aromatic herbs and many spring bulbs began here.
Rosemary
📍 Mediterranean coast
A cliff-and-scrub shrub that wants sun and sharp drainage.
Lavender
📍 Mediterranean
Built for hot, dry hillsides - it sulks in wet soil.
Thyme
📍 Mediterranean
A creeping, aromatic herb of stony ground.
Sage (Salvia officinalis)
📍 Northern Mediterranean
A woody herb that turns evergreen in mild winters.
Bay laurel
📍 Mediterranean
The original laurel wreath - a slow evergreen tree.
Olive
📍 Mediterranean basin
Among the first trees people ever cultivated.
Cyclamen
📍 Mediterranean & Middle East
Grows in winter and rests through the dry summer.
Aloe vera
📍 Arabian Peninsula
Its exact wild home is unknown - it has been grown for so long.
Tulip
📍 Central Asia & Turkey
Prized in the Ottoman Empire centuries before the Dutch craze.
Hyacinth
📍 Eastern Mediterranean & West Asia
A spring bulb bred up from a modest wild flower.
🌿 Temperate Europe
Cool woodlands and hedgerows - the shade and cottage-garden classics of a mild climate.
English ivy
📍 Europe & western Asia
A woodland climber that also carpets the ground in shade.
Foxglove
📍 Western Europe
A woodland-edge biennial - striking, and poisonous to eat.
Hellebore
📍 Europe & the Balkans
Flowers in the depths of winter, hence 'Christmas rose'.
Primrose
📍 Europe & western Asia
One of the first flowers of a European spring.
Snowdrop
📍 Europe & the Middle East
Pushes through frozen ground before winter is over.
Lily of the valley
📍 Europe
A sweetly scented shade spreader - and toxic in every part.
🌍 Tropical Africa
From West African rainforest to East African highlands - several near-indestructible houseplants call it home.
Snake plant (Dracaena / Sansevieria)
📍 Tropical West Africa
Stores water in its blades and forgives long droughts.
Fiddle-leaf fig
📍 Western & Central Africa
A lowland rainforest tree - it wants bright, steady light.
ZZ plant (Zamioculcas)
📍 Eastern Africa
Stores water in potato-like rhizomes for the dry season.
Spider plant
📍 Tropical & southern Africa
Sends out plantlets on runners, ready to root anywhere.
African violet
📍 Cloud forests of Tanzania & Kenya
From cool, misty mountain rock - it likes humidity, not heat.
Coffee plant
📍 Ethiopian highlands
A shade shrub of the forest understorey.
Lucky bamboo (Dracaena)
📍 Central Africa
Not a bamboo at all - a Dracaena that grows in water.
🦒 Southern Africa
A hotspot of succulents and bulbs, with wet and dry seasons that suit plants used to going thirsty.
Jade plant (Crassula)
📍 South Africa & Mozambique
A succulent shrub that lives for decades on a windowsill.
Haworthia
📍 South Africa
A small succulent from rocky, part-shaded ground.
Bird of paradise (Strelitzia)
📍 South Africa
Its crane-like flower is pollinated by sunbirds.
Clivia
📍 South African woodland
A shade-loving bulb that flowers after a cool, dry rest.
Geranium (Pelargonium)
📍 South Africa
The 'geraniums' of the windowbox are really pelargoniums.
Gerbera daisy
📍 South Africa
Bred into one of the world's top cut flowers.
Agapanthus
📍 South Africa
The 'lily of the Nile' actually comes from the far south.
Calla lily (Zantedeschia)
📍 Southern Africa
A marsh plant that grows from a rhizome.
🦎 Madagascar
An island of one-of-a-kind plants - many kalanchoes, palms and spiny euphorbias are found nowhere else.
Kalanchoe
📍 Madagascar
Most flowering kalanchoes are island natives built for drought.
Madagascar dragon tree (Dracaena marginata)
📍 Madagascar
A slim, tolerant tree that suits low-light rooms.
Crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii)
📍 Madagascar
A spiny succulent that blooms almost year-round.
Areca palm
📍 Madagascar
Endangered in the wild, yet one of the most sold houseplants.
Panda plant (Kalanchoe tomentosa)
📍 Madagascar
Fuzzy leaves reduce water loss and sun scorch.
🐘 South & Southeast Asia
Monsoon forests and islands - climbers, figs and orchids that love warmth and steady moisture.
Golden pothos
📍 Southeast Asia & the Pacific
A near-unkillable climber that tolerates deep shade.
Rubber plant (Ficus elastica)
📍 South & Southeast Asia
A forest giant that oozes latex - the source of early rubber.
Moth orchid (Phalaenopsis)
📍 Southeast Asia
An epiphyte that clings to tree bark, not soil.
Alocasia
📍 Tropical Asia
Dramatic leaves from humid, warm monsoon forest.
Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema)
📍 Tropical Asia
A shade-tolerant understorey plant, forgiving of low light.
Jasmine
📍 South & Southeast Asia
Night-scented climbers grown for perfume and tea.
Croton
📍 Southeast Asia & the Pacific
Its wild leaf colour deepens with strong light.
Bird's nest fern (Asplenium)
📍 SE Asia to the Pacific
An epiphyte that funnels debris and rain into its centre.
Lipstick plant (Aeschynanthus)
📍 Southeast Asia
A trailing epiphyte with tubular, bird-pollinated flowers.
🏯 East Asia
China, Japan and Korea - the temperate shrubs, trees and shade plants behind many garden favourites.
Chinese money plant (Pilea)
📍 Yunnan, China
Spread hand to hand by gardeners long before it hit shops.
Cast iron plant (Aspidistra)
📍 Japan & Taiwan
Famous for surviving the darkest, most neglected corners.
Camellia
📍 East Asia
A woodland shrub; one species gives us all true tea.
Azalea
📍 East Asia
A cool-climate shrub bred into thousands of forms.
Chrysanthemum
📍 East Asia
Cultivated in China for well over a thousand years.
Japanese maple
📍 Japan, Korea & China
An understorey tree prized for its autumn colour.
Hosta
📍 Japan, China & Korea
A shade perennial grown for its bold leaves.
Peony
📍 China
Revered in Chinese gardens for centuries as the 'king of flowers'.
Sago palm (Cycas)
📍 Southern Japan
Not a palm but a cycad - an ancient, slow-growing lineage.
🦘 Australia & the Pacific
Sun-hardened shrubs and epiphytes adapted to poor soils, drought and fire.
Kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos)
📍 Southwest Australia
Fuzzy, bird-pollinated flowers from a fire-prone heath.
Eucalyptus
📍 Australia
Aromatic trees adapted to drought and regular fire.
Bottlebrush (Callistemon)
📍 Australia
Its brushes of flowers are packed with nectar for birds.
Umbrella tree (Schefflera)
📍 Australia & New Guinea
A rainforest tree that stays a tidy shrub indoors.
Staghorn fern (Platycerium)
📍 Australia & SE Asia
An epiphyte that mounts on bark, catching water in its fronds.
Hoya (wax plant)
📍 Asia to Australia & the Pacific
A climbing epiphyte with waxy, sweetly scented flower clusters.
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"Origin" here means a plant's native wild range - not where it is grown or sold today, and not a claim about foraging or eating it. Ranges are broad and sometimes debated by botanists; long-cultivated plants like aloe vera no longer have a certain wild home. Pair this with the plant finder to match a plant to your room, and the light checker to read your window.