Plant Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.

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Thimbleberry

Thimbleberry is a thornless North American shrub with large maple-like leaves, white flowers, and soft red berries shaped like thimbles. It thrives in cool, shaded woodlands.

shrub

Shore Pine

Shore Pine is the coastal form of the lodgepole pine, a tough, twisted two-needle pine of the Pacific coast. Its irregular, picturesque shape makes it popular for seaside gardens and bonsai.

tree

Rosemary

An aromatic, woody Mediterranean herb with needle-like evergreen leaves and a piney fragrance, grown as a culinary herb and as a drought-tolerant ornamental shrub.

herb

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

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

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

Friendship Plant

The Friendship Plant is a low-growing Pilea with deeply quilted, bronze-green leaves. It earns its name from how easily it propagates and is shared between gardeners.

houseplant

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

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

Cup Plant

A towering North American prairie perennial whose paired leaves fuse around the square stem to form water-holding cups beneath bright yellow daisy flowers.

flower

Deodar Cedar

Deodar Cedar is a graceful true cedar with gently drooping branches and soft blue-green needles. It is a popular large ornamental tree with an elegant, weeping silhouette.

tree

Calamondin

Calamondin is a small ornamental citrus hybrid bearing abundant tiny orange fruit. Popular as a potted houseplant, it flowers and fruits nearly year-round.

tree

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

Black-Eyed Susan

Black-eyed Susan is a cheerful North American wildflower with golden-yellow petals around a dark brown center, blooming abundantly from summer into fall.

flower

Apache Pine

A southwestern pine of the Sierra Madre and Arizona–New Mexico borderlands, notable for very long, drooping needles and a grass-like seedling stage. Young trees resemble a tuft of grass before the trunk elongates.

tree

Foxtail Fern

Despite its name, foxtail fern is not a true fern but a member of the asparagus family, grown for its plush, upright plumes of needle-like 'leaves.' Its dense, bottlebrush fronds resemble fluffy green foxtails.

houseplant

Quaking Aspen

A fast-growing native tree whose flat-stalked leaves tremble in the slightest breeze and turn brilliant gold in fall. It forms vast clonal groves and is the most widely distributed tree in North America.

tree

Columbine

Columbine is a graceful perennial prized for its intricate, spurred flowers that nod above lacy blue-green foliage in late spring. It self-seeds readily and is a favorite of hummingbirds and bees.

flower

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.

shrub