Question
I recently bought an indoor "tropical foliage" plant from a mass merchandise store.  I am interested in identifying it and learning more about its care. Right now, the edge of the leaves are browning and I would like to find out what to do about it.  It says it requires partial shade or filtered sun and to keep soil moist. It has bright purple on the underside of the leaves and green on the top.  The leaves on the top are mainly green but have the occassional stripe of purple. I would call it parallel venation, but I don't think its veins, just faint small stripes. Its not tree-like, more like a mass of leaves, which are spear shaped (they come to a point). It looks like theres one center stalk where most of the leaves are, but there are also little stalks around it, where more leaves come off of. Do you have any idea what it is? Thanks!

Answer
sounds like it could be in the dracena family.  there are millions of plants out there, so w/out seeing it i can't be sure.  send a digital photo(jpeg format) to       [email protected].         put Plant ID on the subject line or i may not open it.....    

the care would still be similar for most tropical plants.
most are grown under shade cloths in FL because they do not like direct sunlite-the foliage burns(they will tolerate morning sun-inside they do best there).  whenever the nitetime temps go below 45 you should bring them inside(even if only for the nite). if the day temps are above 50 you can leave them outside during the day.
water by weight. put a saucer under the pot. water and let the plant sit in the excess water for 5-10 minutes.  after that time pour off any excess water in the saucer.  pick up the pot.  it should feel heavy.  don't water again until it feels considerably lighter in weight.  outdoors check the plant everyday. indoors check it every 5-10 days.  watering frequency depends on many factors(sun exposure, wind, day temps, etc.).
good luck.  please rate my answer on the allexperts.com site.