A succulent herb whose thick, scalloped leaves sprout tiny plantlets along their edges and can grow into new plants even after being detached — hence "resurrection plant" (Bryophyllum pinnatum, now classified as Kalanchoe pinnata).
Bryophyllum pinnatum (now usually called Kalanchoe pinnata, family Crassulaceae), known in English as the life plant, air plant, cathedral bells or miracle leaf, is a completely hairless, succulent perennial with stout, round stems up to 2 metres tall, often spotted or striped with red. Its fleshy leaves grow in opposite pairs; the lower ones are often simple, and the upper ones are divided into three to five rounded leaflets with scalloped edges, 6 to 20 cm long overall. In the notches along the leaf edge, buds grow into tiny plantlets with their own roots, stem and leaves, which is how a fallen leaf gives rise to new plants. The flowers hang in large, loose clusters at the top of the stem. Each has an inflated, bell-like calyx 2 to 3 cm long, green to reddish, and a longer corolla tube that is green below and bright red or purple above.
It is native to Madagascar. Lamarck described it in 1786 as Cotyledon pinnata from a plant collected in Mauritius, and in 1805 Richard Salisbury in London named it Bryophyllum calycinum from a plant grown in a Calcutta garden. Planted in gardens across the tropics, it often escapes and is now naturalised in Africa, Asia, Australia, the Pacific islands and the Americas, from sea level to 2,600 metres; in Hawaii and elsewhere it is regarded as invasive. Around the world it is used as a medicinal plant against fever and inflammation, and it is grown commercially in China, India, South-East Asia and the West Indies. Like other members of its family it contains bufadienolides, heart poisons that can harm grazing animals: calves fed on it for two days have died. The writer Goethe was so fond of it that he gave its plantlets to friends.
Sources: PROTA4U database (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa), which compiles records from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève, FAO EcoCrop and other botanical databases; Wikipedia, "Kalanchoe pinnata".
Leaf juice or crushed leaves are used across Africa and the tropics for wounds, coughs, earache, hypertension, and kidney stones.
Extremely easy to propagate — a single fallen leaf roots and produces new plantlets along its margins; commonly grown as an ornamental and dooryard medicinal plant.