Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Wild Garlic
A pungent perennial bulb in the onion family that spreads aggressively through lawns and fields, recognized by its hollow, grass-like leaves and strong garlic odor. It is a common turf weed.
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Soapwort
Soapwort is a vigorous perennial whose roots and leaves lather in water, historically used as a gentle natural soap. It bears fragrant pink-to-white flowers and spreads readily by runners.
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White Clover
White clover is a low, creeping perennial legume with three-part leaves and round white flower heads, found in lawns, pastures and meadows worldwide. It fixes nitrogen in the soil and is a favorite of bees, making it both a beneficial cover plant and a common lawn 'weed'.
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Tomato
The tomato is one of the world's most popular garden plants, a warm-season fruiting member of the nightshade family grown on sprawling or vining stems. It comes in countless cultivars from tiny cherries to giant beefsteaks.
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Turnip
The turnip is a fast-growing cool-season root crop with a white-and-purple swollen root, grown widely in vegetable gardens.
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Turmeric
Turmeric is an aromatic tropical perennial in the ginger family, grown for its vivid orange rhizome.
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Zucchini
Zucchini is a prolific summer squash in the gourd family, grown as a bushy warm-season annual. A single healthy plant produces vigorously through the summer.
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Wood Sorrel
Wood sorrel is a clover-like herb with heart-shaped trifoliate leaves and small flowers, common as a garden and lawn weed.
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Wood Betony
Wood betony is a clump-forming perennial herb with crinkled, scalloped leaves and spikes of reddish-purple flowers beloved by bees. It was a widely grown garden plant in medieval Europe.
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Yarrow
Yarrow is a tough, drought-tolerant perennial with feathery foliage and flat-topped clusters of tiny flowers. It is a popular low-maintenance plant for pollinator and meadow gardens.
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Tarragon
Tarragon is an aromatic culinary herb grown in gardens for its slender, glossy, anise-scented foliage. The 'French' type rarely sets viable seed and is propagated by division or cuttings.
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Shepherd's Purse
Shepherd's purse is a common annual weed of the mustard family named for its distinctive heart-shaped seed pods, found in gardens, fields, and roadsides worldwide.
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Yellow Woodsorrel
Yellow woodsorrel is a common clover-like weed with heart-shaped leaflets and small yellow flowers. It self-sows aggressively in lawns, gardens, and pots.
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Spearmint
Spearmint is a fast-spreading, aromatic perennial herb grown in gardens. Vigorous and easy to grow, it is best contained in a pot to keep it from taking over the garden.
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Swiss Chard
Swiss chard is a leafy form of beet grown for its glossy leaves and colorful stalks. Easy, productive and heat- and cold-tolerant, it produces over a long season with cut-and-come-again leaf growth.
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Sorrel
Sorrel is a leafy perennial herb in the dock family, grown in herb and vegetable gardens for its bright green, arrow-shaped leaves. It grows from a deep taproot and is among the earliest greens to emerge in spring.
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Stinging Nettle
Stinging nettle is a tall perennial herb covered in tiny hollow hairs that release an irritating fluid on contact, producing a brief stinging sensation. It has a long history as a fiber and dye plant.
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Spinach
Spinach is a fast-growing, cool-season leafy green that forms a low rosette of dark green leaves. It grows quickly in cool weather and bolts in heat, so it is best sown in spring and fall.
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Spaghetti Squash
Spaghetti squash is a winter squash that grows as an oval yellow fruit on vigorous summer vines. The fruit stores well into fall and winter.
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Tatsoi
Tatsoi is a cold-hardy Asian leafy green that forms a low, dark-green rosette of spoon-shaped leaves. A fast-growing cool-season plant, it shrugs off frost.
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Sweet Potato
Sweet potato is a warm-season trailing vine grown as a crop for its swollen storage roots. Unrelated to the common potato, it belongs to the morning glory family and thrives in long, hot summers.
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Stevia
Stevia is a tender perennial herb in the daisy family, native to South America. It forms a bushy, branching plant grown in gardens and containers.
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Spotted Spurge
Spotted spurge is a low, fast-spreading summer weed that forms flat mats with small reddish-spotted leaves and a milky sap, common in lawns, sidewalks and gardens.
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Sage
Sage is a hardy Mediterranean shrub-herb with soft, gray-green aromatic leaves, widely grown as a culinary herb and ornamental in sunny gardens.
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Wild Onion
A native North American perennial onion with flat, grass-like leaves and bulbs that emit a clear onion scent. It commonly appears in lawns, meadows and woodland edges and is regarded as both a wildflower and a lawn weed.
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Shallot
Shallots are a clustering, small-bulbed member of the onion family grown in gardens. They form clusters of small bulbs and are easy to grow from sets.
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Savory
An aromatic Mediterranean herb in the mint family, grown in gardens as a culinary herb. Summer savory is a tender annual; winter savory a hardy perennial.
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Salvia
Salvia is the huge genus of sages, spanning the culinary herb of the kitchen, aromatic shrubs, and a vast range of ornamental perennials with vivid flower spikes that hummingbirds and bees adore.
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Valerian
Valerian is a tall perennial herb with frothy, sweetly scented flower heads borne on upright clump-forming stems. It is grown as an ornamental for its airy white-to-pink blooms and ferny foliage.
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Watermelon
Watermelon is a sprawling, heat-loving vine in the gourd family grown for its very large fruits. It needs a long, hot season and plenty of room to develop well.
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Rue
Rue is an aromatic evergreen subshrub with blue-green, deeply lobed foliage, long grown as an ornamental and pollinator herb in dry, sunny gardens.
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Wormwood
Wormwood is a silvery, aromatic perennial herb best known as the signature botanical associated with absinthe and vermouth. Its finely divided gray-green foliage is aromatic and drought-tough.
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Puncturevine
Puncturevine is a low, mat-forming summer weed notorious for its hard, spiny seed burs that puncture bicycle tires and bare feet. It thrives in hot, dry, disturbed ground and is widespread in warm regions worldwide.
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Velvetleaf
A tall summer annual with large, soft, heart-shaped velvety leaves and yellow flowers, a major agricultural weed of corn and soybean fields. Its distinctive cup-shaped seed pods and fibrous stems make it easy to recognize.
herbRosemary
An aromatic, woody Mediterranean herb with needle-like evergreen leaves and a piney fragrance, grown as a culinary herb and as a drought-tolerant ornamental shrub.
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Watercress
Watercress is a fast-growing semi-aquatic perennial in the cabbage family, with crisp dark-green leaves on sprawling, rooting stems. It naturally grows in cool, clean flowing water.
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Wild Bergamot
An aromatic North American mint-family perennial topped with ragged lavender flower heads that are magnets for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
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Thyme
A low, woody Mediterranean herb with tiny aromatic leaves, valued as a drought-tolerant ground cover and a superb bee plant.
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Red Clover
Red clover is a short-lived perennial legume with rounded pinkish-purple flower heads, widely grown as a nitrogen-fixing cover crop and forage plant.
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Wild Mustard
Wild mustard, or charlock, is a fast-growing annual weed of fields and roadsides with bright yellow four-petaled flowers. It is an aggressive crop weed.
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Pokeweed
Pokeweed is a tall, robust native perennial with striking magenta stems and drooping clusters of dark purple-black berries in late summer and fall.
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Radicchio
Radicchio is a leafy chicory grown for its striking red-and-white heads. Cool weather deepens their rich, vivid color.
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Radish
Radish is a fast-growing root vegetable in the cabbage family, grown for its crisp, brightly colored roots. Many varieties go from seed to harvest in under a month, making it a favorite for impatient and beginner gardeners.
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St. John's Wort
St. John's wort is a hardy yellow-flowered perennial with masses of five-petaled summer blooms. Tough and drought-tolerant, it is also a noxious weed in many grazing regions.
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Ragweed
A common annual weed that produces large amounts of lightweight, wind-blown pollen in late summer and fall. It has fern-like, deeply divided leaves and inconspicuous greenish flower spikes.
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Prickly Lettuce
Prickly lettuce is a tall annual or biennial weed and the closest wild relative of cultivated lettuce. It is recognized by spiny leaf midribs, milky sap, and leaves that twist to align vertically like a compass.
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Strawberry
The garden strawberry is a low-growing perennial in the rose family, known for its red fruit. It spreads by runners and is one of the most popular plants for home gardens and containers.
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Purple Deadnettle
Purple deadnettle is a low winter annual in the mint family, recognized by its triangular, reddish-purple-tinged upper leaves and small pink-purple flowers. A close relative of henbit, it is a harmless, bee-friendly weed that carpets gardens and fields in early spring.
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