 Let's get some botany out of the way first. Crotons are in the genus Codium, and they're out of the huge and varied Euphorbiaceae family of plants. Why, my goodness, crown of thorns are in that plant family, and so are poinsettias and tons and tons of other domesticated plants. Crotons are native to the South Pacific. When you grow them in tropical climates, most types are shrubs or very small trees. If we have access to large greenhouse spaces, we can overwinter them until our plants, too,