Strobilanthes alternata

Purple Waffle Plant, Waffle Plant, Red Ivy, Red-Flame Ivy, Metal Leaf Plant

Native to the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, Strobilanthes alternata — widely sold under its older name Hemigraphis alternata — is a low-growing groundcover of the acanthus family with some of the most striking foliage at this scale. The upper leaf surface is dark green overlaid with a silver metallic sheen that shifts under different angles of light, while the undersides are a deep reddish-purple; the whole surface is deeply puckered in the quilted texture that gives it the common name Waffle Plant. It does best in the warm, consistently moist, high-humidity conditions of a closed terrarium, where it spreads readily to form a dense foreground cover. Stems root at every node they touch, making it effectively self-propagating in a well-kept enclosure.