The classic florists' gloxinia, a tuberous tropical perennial of the Gesneriaceae native to the Atlantic Forest of south-eastern Brazil (POWO, Kew; recorded as Brazilian-native in Flora e Funga do Brasil). It forms a low, neat rosette of soft, velvety leaves above which sit large, showy, bell-shaped flowers in rich violet, red, pink or white, often finished with a contrasting picotee edge. POWO and Flora e Funga do Brasil record Sinningia speciosa as the wild parent of the cultivated florist gloxinia, and that ornamental heritage is exactly how it is grown almost everywhere — as a tender pot or houseplant prized for its plush leaves and velvety trumpet-and-bell flowers. HONESTY: it is very frost-tender, hardy in the ground only in roughly USDA zone 11 and above, and it has a real dormant season — after flowering it dies back to a resting tuber before regrowing, so it is not an evergreen plant but a cyclical one. It is grown purely as an ornamental: no part is eaten. The flowers are insect-pollinated and, in the plant's native Brazilian range, also visited by hummingbirds.