Hawaii's favourite lei flower is a newcomer there: plumeria is native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and the German doctor William Hillebrand brought it to the islands in 1860. Its other name, frangipani, comes from an Italian marquis's perfume.
📍 Central Mexico highlands
Almost every wild dahlia species grows only in Mexico, the genus's home and centre of diversity. Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles named the flower in 1791 after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.
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📍 Iceland
Icelandic horses descend from ponies brought by Norse settlers more than 1,000 years ago. Today no horse may be imported into Iceland, and one that leaves can never come back. Many can do an extra-smooth gait called the tölt.
📍 California, USA
Despite its name, the Bengal cat was created in the United States: breeder Jean Mill crossed a wild Asian leopard cat with a house cat in 1963 and founded the breed in California in the 1980s. 'Bengal' comes from the leopard cat's scientific name.
📍 Central North America
Neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke: it's the tuber of a sunflower native to central North America. 'Jerusalem' is probably a garbling of girasole, Italian for sunflower.
📍 Maritime Canada & Maine
Not Alpine at all: toboggan reached English in 1829 through Canadian French tabagane, from an Algonquian word for a sled, such as Mi'kmaq topaghan. These flat wooden sleds hauled loads across the snow.
📍 Barbados
The grapefruit is a chance cross of two Asian imports, the pomelo and the sweet orange. It was first described on Barbados in 1750 as the 'forbidden fruit' and only reached Florida in 1823.