Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Parlor Palm
A compact, slow-growing palm that thrives in low light, making it a classic indoor plant since Victorian times. It forms delicate clumps of feathery green fronds.
houseplant
Poison Sumac
Poison sumac is a wetland shrub or small tree of eastern North America, distinguished from harmless sumacs by its smooth-edged leaflets and drooping pale berries.
shrub
Plumeria
Plumeria is a tropical shrub or small tree prized for its intensely fragrant, waxy flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, and red, famously used to make Hawaiian leis.
shrub
Pansy
Pansies are cool-season bedding flowers known for their large, flat, face-like blooms in a huge range of colors. They are a hybrid garden plant derived from wild violas.
flower
Obedient Plant
Obedient plant is a native perennial with tall spikes of pink to white snapdragon-like flowers in late summer. It earns its name because pushed flowers stay in their new position.
flower
Lychee Tree
A subtropical evergreen tree producing clusters of red, knobbly-skinned fruit. It is a beautiful but demanding tree that needs precise climate conditions to fruit.
tree
Lucky Bamboo
Despite the name, lucky bamboo is not a bamboo but a Dracaena, often grown in water and trained into curls or stalks. It is a popular feng shui gift symbolizing good fortune.
houseplant
Katsura Tree
A graceful Asian shade tree with heart-shaped blue-green leaves that turn gold and apricot in fall, famously releasing a sweet scent of burnt sugar or cotton candy.
tree
Ironweed
A tall, robust native perennial crowned in late summer with clusters of intensely purple flowers. Its tough, wiry stems and iron-hard durability give it its name.
flower
Jacaranda
A subtropical tree famous for spectacular clouds of violet-blue trumpet flowers in spring, paired with delicate fern-like foliage and a broad, airy canopy.
tree
Huckleberry
A wild, blueberry-like shrub of western North American mountains, bearing small purple-black berries. Notoriously difficult to cultivate, it grows mostly in the wild.
shrub
Hydrangea Tree
The hydrangea tree is a panicle hydrangea trained to a single trunk, topped with large cone-shaped clusters of white flowers that age to pink in late summer. It is the hardiest and most sun-tolerant of the hydrangeas.
shrub
Gladiolus
Gladiolus is a tall summer bulb that sends up dramatic spikes of funnel-shaped flowers in nearly every color, a staple of cutting gardens and floral arrangements.
flower
Elderberry
Elderberry is a fast-growing deciduous shrub bearing large creamy flower clusters in early summer and drooping bunches of small dark purple-black berries in late summer.
shrub
English Daisy
The English daisy is a low, cheerful perennial with white-to-pink petaled flowers around a yellow center, beloved in cottage gardens and famous as the daisy of lawns and daisy-chains.
flower
Cholla Cactus
A group of shrubby to treelike desert cacti with cylindrical, jointed segments and barbed spines that detach easily. Iconic plants of the American Southwest deserts.
succulent
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.
shrub
Catmint
A soft, billowing perennial with gray-green aromatic foliage and a long haze of small lavender-blue flowers. Tough, drought-proof, deer-resistant, and a magnet for bees.
herb
Blanket Flower
A heat-loving, daisy-like perennial in fiery bands of red, orange, and yellow that bloom nonstop all summer. Tough, drought-proof, and beloved by bees and butterflies.
flower
Black Oak
Black oak is a large red-oak-group tree of eastern North America with dark, blocky bark and bristle-tipped lobed leaves. Its inner bark once yielded the yellow dye quercitron.
tree
Bald Cypress
A deciduous conifer of southern swamps, famous for its feathery foliage, buttressed trunk, and 'knees' that poke up from the water. Drops its needles in fall, hence 'bald.'
tree
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.
shrub
Japanese Aucuba
Japanese aucuba is a shade-loving evergreen shrub with bold, glossy leaves, often speckled gold, earning it the name gold dust plant. It brings light and color to dark, difficult corners.
shrub
Apple Tree
The apple tree is a deciduous fruit tree grown worldwide for its familiar fruit. With thousands of cultivars and the need for cross-pollination, it is a rewarding but slightly demanding garden and orchard tree.
tree