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Pilea peperomioides
Pilea peperomioides is a Chinese species, grown as a houseplant for its round, shiny, dark green leaves on long stalks. Keep it bright with indirect light and water when the top of the soil dries.
Pilea peperomioides (), the Chinese money plant, UFO plant, pancake plant, lefse plant or missionary plant, is a species of flowering plant in the nettle family Urticaceae, native to Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in southern China.
In temperate regions, P. peperomioides is treated as a houseplant, with cultivation recommended at a minimum temperature anywhere from 13 °C (55 °F) to 5 °C (41 °F). However, in its native range, the plant tolerates periods near or below freezing. Thus the plant could be kept in unheated indoor areas or even outdoors in temperate climates; the foliage may be killed back by frost, but regrows in spring. Wessel Marais, the Kew Gardens botanist who determined the identity of the plant in the 1980s, later grew the plant outdoors in Cazillac, France. He reported it surviving for 6 or 7 years with temperatures as low as −9 °C (16 °F), noting that "the stems above ground are killed but it comes again from below ground-level, so deep planting should do the trick".
P. peperomioides is propagated from plantlets that sprout on the trunk of the parent plant (these are called offshoots) or from underground shoots (called rhizomes). These offshoots are often passed on as a lucky plant ("lucky thaler") or friendship plant.
This species occurs only in China: in the southwest of Sichuan province and the west of Yunnan province. It grows on shady, damp rocks in forests at altitudes from 1,500 to 3,000 m (4,900 to 9,800 ft). It is endangered in its native habitat. However, it is kept in China and worldwide as an ornamental plant.
Aluminium Plant · Depressed clearweed · Friendship plant · Rockweed · Pilea mollis · Pilea serpyllacea · Clearweed
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pilea peperomioides by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
