Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Pear Tree
The pear tree is a deciduous fruit tree grown for its abundant white spring blossom and glossy foliage. European pears (Pyrus communis) are long-lived ornamental and orchard trees.
tree
Meadow Rue
Meadow rue is an airy perennial with delicate, columbine-like foliage and fluffy clouds of tiny lilac, pink, or white flowers. It brings a soft, ethereal texture to part-shade borders.
flower
Gaura
Gaura is an airy, long-blooming perennial whose delicate pink or white flowers dance on slender, wiry stems like a cloud of butterflies. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms for months.
flower
Elephant Ear Cactus
A prickly pear with flat, rounded green pads that branch into ear-like shapes. Instead of long spines it bears dense tufts of tiny barbed glochids that detach at the lightest touch.
succulent
Culver's Root
Culver's root is a tall, elegant North American prairie perennial with whorled leaves and slender, candelabra-like spires of white to pale-lilac flowers. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies in summer.
flower
Dwarf Umbrella Tree
The Dwarf Umbrella Tree has glossy leaflets arranged like the spokes of an umbrella radiating from each stem. It is a popular, fast-growing indoor plant and a favorite subject for bonsai.
houseplant
Calathea Triostar
A vivid prayer plant relative with variegated leaves splashed in cream, green, and pink, and dramatic deep-magenta undersides. Like other Marantaceae, its leaves fold up at night.
houseplant
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.
shrub
Bristlecone Pine
Bristlecone Pine is among the longest-lived organisms on Earth, with individuals exceeding 4,800 years old. These gnarled, weathered conifers cling to harsh, high-elevation mountains of the American West.
tree
Monkey Puzzle Tree
The monkey puzzle is a striking evergreen conifer from the Andes with stiff, spiral-arranged spiky leaves and a distinctive symmetrical, dome-topped silhouette. It is a living fossil, virtually unchanged for millions of years, and can live over a thousand years.
tree
Hardy Geranium
Hardy geranium, or cranesbill, is a tough, long-lived perennial that forms spreading mounds of deeply lobed leaves covered in saucer-shaped flowers. Unlike the tender bedding "geraniums" (Pelargonium), these true geraniums are cold-hardy and low-maintenance.
flower
Golden Rain Tree
The golden rain tree is a small to medium deciduous shade tree noted for its large sprays of bright yellow summer flowers followed by papery, lantern-like seed capsules. It is tough, adaptable, and popular as a street and lawn tree.
tree
Water Oak
Water oak is a fast-growing, semi-evergreen red-oak-group tree of the southeastern US, common along streams and in yards. It has spatula-shaped leaves but is relatively short-lived.
tree
Zinnia
Zinnias are fast-growing, heat-loving annuals that produce bold, daisy-like flowers in vivid colors all summer. They are easy from seed, beloved by pollinators, and excellent cut flowers.
flower
Woolly Senecio
A striking succulent whose cylindrical leaves are wrapped in dense, silvery-white felt, like little woolly cocoons. The bright white woolly coating makes it one of the whitest of all succulents.
succulent
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.
herb
Plum Yew
Plum Yew is a shade-tolerant evergreen conifer resembling a yew but with longer needles and plum-like fleshy seed cones. It is valued as a tough, deer-resistant landscape shrub for shady gardens.
shrub
Rainbow Eucalyptus
A towering tropical tree whose smooth bark sheds in patches to reveal streaks of green, blue, orange, purple, and maroon, like a living rainbow. It is the only eucalyptus native to the Northern Hemisphere.
tree
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.
herb
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.
herb
Lawson Cypress
Lawson Cypress, or Port Orford Cedar, is a tall, graceful conifer of the Pacific Northwest with flattened, fern-like fragrant foliage. It has produced hundreds of garden cultivars in many colors and forms.
tree
Ginkgo Biloba
Ginkgo biloba is a unique 'living fossil' tree with distinctive fan-shaped leaves that turn brilliant gold in autumn. Extremely tough and long-lived, it is widely planted as a resilient street tree.
tree
Flowering Almond
Flowering almond is a small deciduous ornamental shrub prized for its profuse pink or white pompom-like blossoms that smother the bare branches in early spring. It is grown purely for ornamental display.
shrub
False Shamrock
A bulbous plant with deep purple, triangular three-part leaves that fold up at night like butterfly wings. Easy to grow, it also produces dainty pale pink or white flowers.
houseplant