Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Peppermint
Peppermint is a vigorous aromatic perennial herb grown in gardens, a natural hybrid of water mint and spearmint with a strong menthol scent.
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Pineapple Weed
A small annual weed with feathery leaves and cone-shaped greenish-yellow flower heads that smell like pineapple when crushed. Closely related to chamomile, it is fragrant and common in compacted, disturbed ground.
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Skullcap
Skullcap is a slender North American mint-family herb with tiny blue, two-lipped flowers. It takes its name from the small helmet- or skull-cap-shaped appendage on the calyx of each bloom.
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Teasel
Teasel is a tall, spiny biennial topped with egg-shaped, prickly flower heads ringed by tiny lavender blooms. Once used to raise the nap on woolen cloth, it is now considered an invasive weed in much of North America.
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Pea
The garden pea is a cool-season climbing legume grown for its seeds and pods. It is one of the earliest crops to sow in spring and fixes nitrogen to enrich the soil.
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Parsley
Parsley is a hardy biennial culinary herb grown as an annual, cultivated for its fresh green curly and flat-leaf foliage.
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Sow Thistle
A leafy annual resembling a soft thistle, with milky sap, lobed prickle-edged leaves and small dandelion-like yellow flowers. It is a widespread garden and field weed.
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Oregano
A hardy, sun-loving Mediterranean herb with small aromatic leaves, valued as a drought-tolerant ground cover and bee plant and grown widely in gardens.
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Sweet Woodruff
Sweet woodruff is a low, spreading groundcover herb with whorls of slender green leaves and clusters of tiny white star-shaped flowers in spring. When dried, its foliage releases a sweet, hay-and-vanilla scent and it carpets shady ground beautifully.
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Self-Heal
A low, spreading mint-family herb with squat spikes of violet flowers, forming a tough, pollinator-friendly mat across lawns, meadows, and woodland edges.
herbRutabaga
Rutabaga is a hardy root crop, a cross between cabbage and turnip, grown for its large, dense, yellow-fleshed root. It is very cold-tolerant and stores well.
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Scarlet Runner Bean
A vigorous climbing bean grown for its showy scarlet flowers and long, flat pods, equally at home on an ornamental fence or a garden trellis.
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Mustard Greens
Mustard greens are fast-growing leafy plants in the cabbage family, grown as a cool-season crop in gardens across many regions.
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Rhubarb
Rhubarb is a hardy herbaceous perennial grown for its thick, ruby-to-green leaf stalks rising from a ground-level crown. It is a robust, long-lived cool-season garden plant.
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Mugwort
A tall, aromatic perennial with silvery-backed, deeply cut leaves, long associated with folklore. It is hardy, vigorous, and often weedy along roadsides.
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Okra
Okra is a heat-loving annual in the mallow family, grown in warm-climate gardens for its showy hibiscus-like flowers and slender, ridged green seed pods. It thrives in hot summers.
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Onion
The onion is a globally cultivated plant grown for its layered underground bulb. A biennial usually grown as an annual, it is one of the world's most widely grown garden plants.
herbHairy Bittercress
A small annual weed in the mustard family that forms a basal rosette and shoots tiny white flowers in early spring, followed by seed pods that explosively fling seeds. It is a common nuisance in nursery pots and garden beds.
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Lovage
Lovage is a tall, robust perennial herb with bold, celery-scented foliage and an architectural form. Long-lived, a single plant makes a striking back-of-border specimen.
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Potato
The potato is a cool-season nightshade-family plant grown for its starchy underground tubers, among the world's most widely cultivated staple crops. It is grown from 'seed potatoes' that sprout into leafy plants.
herbMarjoram
Marjoram is a tender, aromatic Mediterranean herb closely related to oregano, grown as a culinary herb in gardens, pots, and on windowsills.
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Pumpkin
Pumpkin is a sprawling warm-season vine in the gourd family, grown for its large, ribbed orange fruits popular in autumn displays and decoration. It is one of the easiest and most rewarding garden crops where space allows.
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Marshmallow
Marshmallow is a soft, downy wetland perennial in the mallow family, with velvety gray-green foliage and pale pink to white flowers. It grows in damp meadows and along riverbanks.
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Prostrate Spurge
A fast-growing summer annual that forms flat, ground-hugging mats with small oval leaves often marked by a maroon spot. It exudes a milky sap and is a widespread weed of lawns, cracks and gardens.
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Pigweed
Pigweed is a vigorous annual weed of the amaranth family with reddish roots and dense seed clusters, and a major agricultural pest.
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Lemon Balm
Lemon balm is a vigorous, lemon-scented perennial herb in the mint family, loved as a magnet for bees. It grows easily and can spread enthusiastically in the garden.
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Plantain
Broadleaf plantain is a tough, low-growing lawn and trail-side herb (not the banana relative) with broad ribbed leaves arranged in a flat rosette. It is one of the most common colonizers of compacted ground.
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Parsnip
The parsnip is a hardy biennial root vegetable grown for its long, tapering, cream-colored taproot. A long-season crop, it is a classic of autumn and winter gardens.
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Pennyroyal
Pennyroyal is a low, creeping mint with a sharp, spearmint-like aroma. It forms a dense ground-hugging mat and produces whorls of small lilac flowers in summer.
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Garlic
Garlic is a pungent bulbous member of the onion family grown worldwide as a garden and field crop, recognized by its strap-like foliage and segmented underground bulb.
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Mint
A vigorous, cooling aromatic herb that spreads readily by runners, grown as a popular culinary herb for its refreshing, strongly scented foliage.
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Mullein
Mullein is a striking biennial that forms a rosette of soft, woolly leaves the first year and a towering yellow flower spike the second. It is a classic wildflower herb of dry, open ground.
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Horseweed
Horseweed is a tall, weedy native annual with a single bristly stalk topped by clouds of tiny flowers; it is a prolific seeder and one of the first weeds to evolve widespread herbicide resistance.
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Nasturtium
Nasturtiums are easygoing annuals with round, lily-pad leaves and bright spurred flowers in fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. They are a cheerful, low-fuss choice for beds, baskets, and borders.
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Gotu Kola
A low, creeping wetland herb with round, scalloped leaves, grown as a fast-spreading, moisture-loving ground cover.
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Nettle
A vigorous perennial herb famous for the stinging hairs on its leaves and stems. It thrives in rich, damp soils across temperate regions.
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Goldenseal
A shade-loving woodland perennial with a brilliant yellow root, now threatened by overharvesting from the wild. It is a sensitive plant requiring rich, moist forest conditions.
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Garlic Mustard
Garlic mustard is an aggressive biennial herb with garlic-scented leaves and small white flowers, and one of North America's most damaging invasive plants.
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Milk Thistle
Milk thistle is a striking, spiny thistle with glossy white-marbled leaves and large purple flower heads. Robust and self-seeding, it can become a weed in warm climates.
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Green Onion
Green onions are slender, mild alliums grown for their hollow green tops and small white bases. Fast and forgiving, they are among the easiest plants to grow and even regrow from rooted bases.
herbGinseng
Ginseng is a slow-growing, shade-loving woodland perennial recognized by its whorls of compound leaves and its fleshy, often forked root.
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Meadowsweet
Meadowsweet is a graceful wetland perennial topped with frothy, almond-scented cream flowers carried in branched plumes above pinnate foliage.
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Lima Bean
Lima beans are a warm-season legume in the pea family, available in bush and pole forms. They are a heat-loving plant native to the Americas.
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Lavender
An aromatic Mediterranean shrub-herb grown for its fragrant purple flower spikes and silvery foliage. Lavender thrives on sun, lean soil, and minimal water.
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Kohlrabi
Kohlrabi is a cool-season cabbage relative grown for its crisp, swollen above-ground stem. It is a leafy garden vegetable in the cabbage family.
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Leek
The leek is a hardy allium grown for its long, blanched white shank of tightly wrapped leaf bases. Cold-tolerant and slow-growing, it is a classic autumn and winter garden vegetable.
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Feverfew
Feverfew is a bushy, aromatic herb covered in small white daisy flowers with yellow centers. It is a cheerful, easy cottage-garden plant with feathery, citrus-scented foliage.
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Edamame
Edamame is a warm-season legume in the pea family, a bushy annual grown from young green soybeans. The plant fixes its own nitrogen and forms fuzzy green pods.
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