With the huge surge of new tropical plant introductions flooding into the trade right now, it is probably the most exciting time in a century to be a houseplant collector. I wonder if this is what it felt like to be a head gardener of a grand estate in Victorian England, when plant hunters were sending back a flurry of new introductions from all over the globe that had never been seen in Britain before. During the first few years of the recent houseplant renaissance, many “new” plants were, in fact, just 1970s staples making a long-overdue comeback, but suddenly there seem to be dozens of truly “new” species, even entire genera, entering the UK market for the first time. There are dozens to pick from, but it’s hard to think of one that’s more weird and wonderful than the huperzia.
