Bromeliad
Every time you eat a pineapple, you are eating a bromeliad! There are approximately 2,877 different species of bromeliads divided into 56 genera. All bromeliads except for one species are native to the New World tropics and sub tropics. Their center of distribution is Brazil. The pineapple was the first bromeliad to be widely cultivated in horticulturent.

Chrysanthemum
Linneaus named the Chrysanthemum after the Greek words chryos, which means gold, and anthemom, which means flower. These “Golden Flowers” now come in all shades of golds, reds, pinks, purples, whites and many shades in between. “Mums,” as they are sometimes called, provide color to the garden in the fall. Mums originated in China, where they have been cultivated for centuries.

Fern
What do dinosaurs and ferns have in common?  They were both present in the Mesozoic era.  In fact, ferns are among the world’s oldest living things (even older than the dinosaurs) dating from the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago.  Ferns represent over 240 genera and approximately 10,500 species.

Indoor Tropicals
The origin of indoor gardening is thought to have been in Greece by the women who grew herbs indoors for the Festival of Adonis.  Orangeries, rooms of citrus plants grown indoors, were common during and after the Renaissance.  The year 1830 marked the invention of Wardian Cases, or miniature greenhouses, which allowed people to grow ferns and other tropical plants in the same humid conditions as the plants’ native habitats. 

Ornamental Grasses
Grasses are an enormous part of people’s daily lives. Members of the grass family POACEAE over the earth in farm fields and rice paddies, but their ornamental value is also great.  The first grass to be used as an ornamental was Coix lacryma-jobi, or Job’s Tears.  This grew in monastery gardens in the 14th century, and the seed heads were used for rosary beads.