Despite nicknames like 'Chinese water bamboo', lucky bamboo is not a bamboo and not from China: it's a dracaena that grows wild in Central Africa, from Cameroon to the Congo. Its scientific name honours Henry Sander, a German-born orchid grower in England.
📍 Mountains of northern Greece & Albania
The conker tree of British playgrounds is a Balkan native: wild horse chestnuts survive only in a few mountain forests of northern Greece, Albania and nearby. Everywhere else, it was planted.
📍 China
Garden chrysanthemums were bred in China for many centuries before they reached Japan. There the flower became the emperor's emblem, which is why the Japanese monarchy is called the Chrysanthemum Throne.
📍 South America (Brazil & neighbours)
Bougainvillea, the flower of Mediterranean balconies, is a South American native that grows wild from Brazil to Peru and Argentina. It is named after French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, whose expedition recorded it.
📍 Cape region, South Africa
It looks Dutch, but aardvark ('earth pig', for its burrowing) was coined in South Africa in Afrikaans, the language that grew from the Dutch of Cape settlers. English borrowed it in 1833, and aardvarks live only in Africa.
📍 Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco & Tunisia)
Couscous isn't a grain: it's tiny balls of semolina, rolled by hand and steamed. It began with the Berber peoples of North Africa, and in 2020 Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia put it on UNESCO's heritage list together.
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📍 Misserghin (near Oran), Algeria
The clementine is a happy accident: a cross of mandarin and sweet orange that sprang up in an orphanage garden at Misserghin, near Oran in Algeria. It was named in 1902 after the brother who tended it, Clément Rodier.