Potted Plant Identification by Description

Flowers or Not

• Most plants have specific light requirements to flower, and our homes often can't provide these requirements. However, some plants will flower indoors. If you have a plant with purple to pale pink flowers and fuzzy, low-growing leaves, this is an African violet. A plant with a spiky flower and thick, sword-like leaves is some type of bromeliad (such as pineapple). If the butterfly-like flowers are bright pink and the leaves heart-shaped, you're looking at a cyclamen.

Fleshy Leaves

• Plants with fleshy leaves are known as succulents. Related to cacti, these plants store water in their leaves and require infrequent watering. If the leaves are round and the plant has thick stems that look like tree branches, this is a jade plant. If the fleshy leaves grow straight up in spikes and have a toothed edge, you have an aloe vera plant. A squat plant with sharp spines is one of the many varieties of cactus.

Colorful Leaves

• Some potted plants add an extra layer of beauty to your home with their brightly colored leaves. A plant with large, pink and green leaves shaped like an arrowhead, is called a caladium. A croton plant has thick, oval leaves with orange and brown mottling. One of the most colorful houseplants is coleus. These plants have leaves that feel like velvet with a variety of patterns of green, yellow, pink, red and white.

Trailing Plants

• With a hook in the ceiling, you can hang certain houseplants and let the vining leaves cascade over the edge of the pot. One of the most common houseplants is philodendron, which has glossy, dark green, heart-shaped leaves that grow thickly along the vines. If the leaves are thin with yellow and green stripes and small spiderlike offshoots trailing off the plant, this is a spider plant. If the leaves have five lobes similar to a small maple leaf, you have a type of ivy.

Upright Plants

• Upright plants make terrific focal points in a room. If your plant has several swordlike leaves with a slight twist to them as they grow upward, this is a snake plant, which is also known as mother-in-law's tongue. A plant with large leaves with up to 10 lobes, like an overgrown maple leaf, is called fatsia. If the leaves grow on a tall stem and look like the metal skeleton of an umbrella, it is called an umbrella plant.