Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Castor Bean
Castor bean is a fast-growing, dramatic plant with huge tropical leaves and spiny seed pods, often used as a bold ornamental for an instant tropical effect in gardens.
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Cotoneaster
Cotoneaster is a versatile, easy shrub ranging from flat groundcovers to upright forms, valued for small flowers, brilliant red berries and dense, often herringbone-patterned branches. It is a magnet for birds.
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Chaste Tree
The chaste tree is a Mediterranean deciduous shrub or small tree with aromatic, palmate foliage and slender spikes of lavender-blue summer flowers that attract bees and butterflies.
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Gooseberry
A thorny deciduous shrub in the currant family that produces translucent berries on arching, spiny stems. It is hardy, productive and tolerant of cool climates.
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Cigar Plant
A bushy tender perennial covered in tiny tubular orange-red flowers tipped with white and black, resembling lit cigars and beloved by hummingbirds.
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Goatsbeard
Goatsbeard is a robust, shade-loving perennial that produces tall, feathery plumes of creamy-white flowers, resembling a giant astilbe. It is a striking native woodland plant for moist, partly shaded gardens.
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Forsythia
A tough deciduous shrub that bursts into brilliant yellow flowers along bare branches in early spring, before its leaves appear. One of the earliest and most reliable harbingers of spring in temperate gardens.
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Blueberry
Blueberries are deciduous fruiting shrubs grown for their round, dusty-blue berries. They demand acidic, moist, well-drained soil and reward growers with both fruit and brilliant autumn color.
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Boxwood
A dense, slow-growing evergreen shrub that has been the backbone of formal gardens, hedges and topiary for centuries. Its small glossy leaves clip cleanly into crisp shapes.
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Fothergilla
Fothergilla is a native deciduous shrub offering fragrant white bottlebrush flowers in spring and spectacular orange-red-yellow foliage in fall. It is a low-fuss, multi-season ornamental.
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Buddhist Pine
Buddhist Pine is a versatile evergreen conifer with long, soft, strap-like leaves, widely grown as a hedge, container plant, houseplant, and bonsai. Native to East Asia, it tolerates pruning and shade well.
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Burning Bush
A deciduous shrub famous for its fiery crimson-red fall foliage and distinctive corky 'wings' along the stems. Tough and adaptable, it is also invasive in parts of North America.
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Camellia Tree
The camellia is a glossy-leaved evergreen shrub or small tree bearing large, showy rose-like flowers in shades of red, pink and white during fall, winter and spring. It is a classic shade-garden ornamental.
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Dewberry
Dewberry is a low, trailing relative of the blackberry that produces dark berries earlier in the season. Its sprawling thorny canes form ground-hugging mats.
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Bottlebrush Tree
An evergreen Australian shrub or small tree whose cylindrical red flower spikes look exactly like bottle brushes. The nectar-rich blooms draw birds and pollinators.
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Box Honeysuckle
Box honeysuckle is a small-leaved evergreen shrub used as a dense, fine-textured hedge or topiary, much like boxwood. It is fast-growing, shade-tolerant and easy to clip into shape.
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Cranberry
A low, trailing evergreen shrub native to North American wetlands, grown for its red berries. It requires acidic, consistently moist, peaty soil to thrive.
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Clematis
Clematis is a versatile climbing vine renowned for its large, showy flowers that cover trellises, fences, and arbors in a spectacular seasonal display.
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Azalea
Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the genus Rhododendron, prized for masses of funnel-shaped spring blooms. They prefer acidic soil, dappled light, and consistent moisture.
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Deutzia
A graceful deciduous shrub smothered in clusters of small white (or pink) star-shaped flowers in late spring. Compact, hardy, and easy, it works well in borders, edging, and mass plantings.
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Croton
The croton is a tropical shrub famous for its leathery leaves splashed with brilliant yellow, orange, red, and green. Bright light is the key to its vivid coloring.
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Bilberry
A low-growing wild relative of the blueberry, native to northern European heaths and woodlands. It forms a small deciduous shrub bearing dark blue-black berries on distinctive angular green stems.
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Barberry
A dense, thorny deciduous shrub grown for colorful red, gold, or purple foliage and bright red berries. Tough and adaptable, though invasive in parts of North America.
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Beautyberry
A deciduous shrub famous for the clusters of vivid metallic-purple berries that wrap its arching branches in fall. Native to the southeastern US, it is easy, wildlife-friendly, and unmistakable in autumn.
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Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is a small, drought-tolerant evergreen shrub of India and the Mediterranean in the nightshade family. It has dull green leaves and small berries held in papery husks.
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California Juniper
California Juniper is a rugged desert shrub or small tree of the arid Southwest, with gray-green scale foliage, reddish berry-like cones, and a gnarled habit prized for bonsai.
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California Lilac
California lilac is a western North American shrub celebrated for its dense clusters of intensely blue flowers in spring. It is a magnet for bees and a backbone of water-wise native gardens.
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Abelia
Abelia is a tough, semi-evergreen shrub with arching branches, glossy leaves, and a long summer-to-fall show of small, fragrant, bell-shaped flowers. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies.
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Chokeberry
Chokeberry is a hardy North American native shrub with white spring flowers, glossy berries, and fiery fall foliage. It is exceptionally adaptable and wildlife-friendly.
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Camellia
Camellias are elegant evergreen shrubs with glossy dark foliage and large, rose-like blooms in winter and early spring. Their long flowering season and lush leaves make them prized in shade gardens.
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Butterfly Bush
A fast-growing deciduous shrub bearing long, fragrant flower spikes that are magnets for butterflies and bees. Vigorous and easy, it is also invasive in some regions, so non-seeding cultivars are recommended.
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Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea is a thorny tropical climbing shrub blanketed in vivid papery bracts of magenta, purple, orange, or red. It thrives in heat and sun and blooms most when kept on the dry side.
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Boysenberry
A trailing bramble hybrid created by crossing blackberry, raspberry, dewberry and loganberry. It produces large, deep maroon aggregate berries and is famously associated with Knott's Berry Farm.
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Bluebeard
Bluebeard is a compact late-summer shrub smothered in clusters of blue flowers that pollinators adore. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms when most shrubs have finished.
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Buffalo Berry
A tough, thorny North American shrub with silvery leaves and small red berries. Nitrogen-fixing and extremely drought- and cold-hardy, it forms dense thickets on poor soils.
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Blackberry
Blackberries are vigorous, often thorny cane plants in the rose family, bearing glossy black aggregate berries in late summer. Famously tough, they grow wild as brambles and in many improved garden varieties.
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Blue Star Juniper
Blue Star Juniper is a compact, mounding dwarf conifer with dense, silvery-blue, awl-shaped needles, prized as a low-maintenance ground-cover shrub.
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Bottlebrush
Bottlebrush is an Australian evergreen shrub famous for its cylindrical brushes of bright red flowers that draw hummingbirds and bees. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms for much of the year.
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Black Currant
An aromatic deciduous shrub in the genus Ribes, grown in gardens for its dark purple-black berries. Its strongly scented foliage and upright, thornless habit make it easy to recognize.
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Bearberry
A hardy, mat-forming evergreen groundcover shrub of cold northern regions, with glossy leaves, pink bell flowers, and red berries favored by bears and birds.
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