Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Cauliflower
Cauliflower is a cool-season member of the cabbage family grown for its dense white head of immature flower buds, called a curd. It is one of the more demanding brassicas, needing steady cool conditions to head up well.
herb
Balloon Flower
Balloon flower is a long-lived perennial named for its puffy, balloon-like buds that pop open into star-shaped blue, pink or white blooms. It is an easy, deer-resistant plant that flowers reliably through summer.
flowerHaworthia
A small, slow-growing rosette succulent often called the zebra plant for the raised white bands on its dark green leaves. Compact and slow-growing, it thrives on neglect and tolerates lower light than most succulents.
succulent
Alocasia Black Velvet
A compact jewel Alocasia prized for its near-black, velvety heart-shaped leaves veined in striking silvery-white. Its small stature and dramatic contrast make it a collector favorite, though it is fussy about humidity.
houseplant
Seven-Son Flower
Seven-son flower is a multi-season large shrub or small tree bearing fragrant white late-summer flowers followed by showy rosy-red sepals in fall. Its peeling tan bark adds winter interest.
shrub
Strawflower
An Australian annual prized for its papery, daisy-like bracts that keep their bright color long after cutting, making it a favorite for dried-flower arrangements. The crisp, straw-textured petals come in gold, orange, red, pink and white.
flower
Globe Amaranth
A heat-loving annual grown for its round, clover-like flower heads of papery bracts in magenta, purple, pink, white or orange. The everlasting blooms keep their color when dried and stand up beautifully to summer heat and humidity.
flowerCape Primrose
Cape primrose is a compact, long-blooming relative of the African violet, prized for its rosettes of soft, strappy leaves and clouds of trumpet-shaped flowers in blues, purples, pinks and white. It flowers for months with very little fuss on a bright windowsill.
houseplant
Black-Eyed Susan Vine
A cheerful twining vine from Africa bearing masses of flat, five-petaled flowers in orange, yellow or white, each with a dark chocolate-purple center 'eye.' It quickly covers trellises and trails from baskets through the warm season.
flower
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.
herb
Love-in-a-Mist
A delicate cottage-garden annual whose blue, white or pink flowers nestle in a misty halo of thread-like foliage, followed by ornamental inflated seed pods. Both the airy blooms and the balloon-like pods are prized for fresh and dried arrangements.
flower
Catalpa Tree
The catalpa is a fast-growing deciduous shade tree famous for its huge heart-shaped leaves, showy clusters of frilly white flowers, and long slender seed pods resembling beans or cigars. It is a popular ornamental for large lawns and street plantings.
tree
Silk Floss Tree
The silk floss tree is a striking subtropical tree with a bulging, thorn-studded green trunk and large pink-and-cream hibiscus-like flowers in autumn. Its seed pods burst to release silky white fibers, giving the tree its name.
tree
Jacob's Ladder
Jacob's ladder is a graceful perennial named for its neat, ladder-like rows of paired leaflets. In late spring it bears clusters of bell- to cup-shaped blue, white or pink flowers, making it a fine choice for cottage and woodland-edge gardens.
flower
Fan Flower
An Australian trailing plant grown for its unusual fan-shaped flowers, with five petals all spread to one side like a tiny hand. Heat- and drought-tolerant, it blooms nonstop in blue, purple, pink or white, ideal for baskets and containers.
flower
Cast Iron Plant 'Milky Way'
'Milky Way' is a speckled cast iron plant whose deep green, upright leaves are scattered with tiny creamy-white to yellow spots, like stars across a night sky. It keeps the legendary toughness and shade tolerance of the cast iron plant.
houseplant
Star Magnolia
Star magnolia is a slow-growing small tree or large shrub that opens dozens of fragrant, many-petaled white star-shaped flowers in very early spring, often before any other tree blooms. Its compact size suits smaller gardens.
tree
Tulip Tree
One of the tallest eastern hardwoods, named for its showy tulip-shaped greenish-orange flowers and uniquely four-lobed leaves. A fast-growing member of the magnolia family.
tree
Royal Poinciana
A spectacular tropical tree famous for its fiery red-orange canopy of blooms and broad, fern-like foliage. It is one of the most flamboyant flowering trees in the world.
tree
Meadowsweet
Meadowsweet is a graceful wetland perennial topped with frothy, almond-scented cream flowers carried in branched plumes above pinnate foliage.
herb
African Tulip Tree
The African tulip tree is a fast-growing tropical tree topped with vivid orange-red, tulip-shaped flowers held above glossy foliage. Its showy blooms make it a popular ornamental, though it is invasive in many tropical regions.
tree
Four O'Clock
A bushy tuberous perennial famous for fragrant trumpet flowers that open in late afternoon and stay open through the night, then close by morning. A single plant can bear differently colored blooms, sometimes flecked on the same flower.
flower
Shirley Poppy
The Shirley poppy is a refined garden strain of the wild corn poppy, bred for its delicate, papery flowers in soft pinks, whites, reds, and bicolors. These cool-season annuals self-sow freely for drifts of tissue-thin blooms.
flower
Coleus
Coleus is a vibrant foliage plant grown for its endlessly varied leaves in shades of red, pink, green, purple, and gold. Easy to grow and propagate, it is a favorite for containers and shady beds.
houseplant