Few plants can match the canna lily’s bold beauty and long history. This tropical showstopper is a lily only in name — in fact, it’s more closely related to bananas and ginger.

Once grown as food in ancient Peru, cannas, with their towering banana-like foliage and magnificent, self-cleaning flowers, shine in modern gardens.

Kiwi fruit originated in the Yangtze River valley of China, where it flourished wild for centuries before cultivation began. Missionary Isabel Fraser introduced the “Chinese gooseberry” to New Zealand in the early 1900s, where farmers renamed the fruit “kiwi” after their national bird.

California began growing kiwi commercially in the 1970s, primarily in the Central Valley, and now accounts for about 95% of US kiwi fruit production.

The wild ancestor of the cherry tomato originated in the coastal regions of Peru and Ecuador.

Plant breeders in the 1970s developed modern cherry tomato varieties by crossbreeding wild tomatoes with domesticated ones, creating the sweet, resilient fruit we enjoy today.