Golden shrimp plant or golden candle plant (Pachystachys lutea) is a subtropical, soft-stemmed, broadleaf evergreen shrub native to Peru, where it grows 2 to 6 feet tall. Its opposite, 6-inch, lance-shaped to elliptic medium-green leaves are heavily veined, providing an attractive backdrop to its interesting flowers. The blooms are zygomorphic (divided by a single plane into two mirror-image halves). White flowers  emerge sequentially from showy, overlapping, bright yellow bracts throughout the warm months. Its four-sided, 3- to 5-inch bracts somewhat resemble the overlapping scales on a shrimp—the inspiration for one of its common names.

A popular landscape plant in tropical and subtropical areas, the golden shrimp plant grows in almost any moist, organically rich, well-drained acid soil. It thrives in full sun but will tolerate part shade. Winter hardy in USDA Zones 10 to 11, in the Midwest it blooms in the summer. As a houseplant, it requires warm, humid, sunny locations. If it is happy it will bloom throughout the year.