If you’ve been shopping garden centers, leafing through magazines, or watching social media blitzes, you’ve been seeing a familiar face: Pilea Sharing Plant™ (aka Pilea peperomioides). This quirky little beauty is the new “it” plant.

Also known as pancake plant, friendship plant, and Chinese money plant, this pilea sports a very different look than other members of its family (many which have compact growth habits and textured leaves). The branches of Pilea Sharing Plant™ feature stems topped with a bright green, round single leaf.

Pilea Sharing Plant™  is the darling of mid-century modern home decorators because, perhaps, of its imitation of the sputnik light or the star clock.

Or maybe it’s loved because it looks like a sparkler.

Whatever the reason for its popularity, it looks amazing in a pot/stand that elevates it to a piece of art when sitting on a small table, pedestal, bed stand, or credenza.

I like mine in the center of my dining room table and on the credenza in my living room.

It’s easy-care too. Pilea Sharing Plant™  likes indirect sun (never direct sun), soil on the drier side (never soggy), and plants enjoy a little nip of fertilizer every 6 months or so. To keep your Pilea Sharing Plant™ symmetrical, rotate the plant occasionally. (Plants have the tendency to grow toward light, an action called phototropism.)

Learn more about Pilea Sharing Plant™ as well as other members of the Pilea family.

Written by Karen Weir-Jimerson