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Visual identification of houseplants can be tricky at times. You really have to know your stuff in order to identify them successfully as there are so many types of plants and variations on types of plants. Your best bet is to purchase a plant book that you can then thumb through and find matches to the plant you are attempting to identify.
Some things to note when trying to identify a houseplant are texture and color. Some plants have smooth and shiny leaves, some have fuzzy, furry ones. Others have small dark leaves and still others have large brightly colored leaves. Some plants have bright vivid colors and many others have soft pastel colors, or very little color at all.
Visual identification of houseplants also be fairly time consuming if the plant is uncommon. There are many books with 1000's of different types of plants and trying to find a particular one is a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack. If you can find a book designed to help you search by characteristics rather than just the name, that might help speed the process.
You can also go online and look for photo catalog's of types of houseplants. Many times the site will allow you to search for certain characteristics. Another way to make visual identification of houseplants a bit easier, is to learn to recognize the more common plants characteristics.
Some of the indoor growing plants that are popular Dracaenas. They often have colorfully striped leaves, which grow in whorls from the stems. Occasionally they will bloom with white or ivory, intensely fragrant flowers.
Ficas, schefflers and arboricolas are all also very common houseplants that you can become familiar with. Philodendrons, normally a uniform green in color, and pothos are also very common plants that you can learn to identify.
Generally plants grown in home are just small, juvenile forms of larger tropical plants who likely will never reach full growth.
Some factors to consider when trying visual identification of houseplants also are how big the pot is or how big the plant is, the size of the leaves and stalks or stems, even where you live and the shape of the leaves. If you live in a generally cold or cooler year round climate, that can rule out some of the more tropical, hot weather plants as possibilities.
Likewise if your location in fair weather all year round, that can influence the type of plant it may be. Also, where exactly the plant is growing, whether it is in your yard in the shade, or in the basement, or by your front porch in a sunny patch of grass. Depending on the locale, this can influence the possible types of plant it may be.
Visual identification of houseplants can be pretty tough by just sight alone, so it is important to look at any other factors that may help the plant be identified properly.
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