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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Aster

Asters are daisy-like perennials that burst into clouds of starry purple, pink, blue, or white blooms in late summer and autumn. They are pollinator magnets prized for extending color into the season's end.

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Pokeweed

Pokeweed is a tall, robust native perennial with striking magenta stems and drooping clusters of dark purple-black berries in late summer and fall.

herb

Daphne

Daphne is a compact evergreen shrub famous for intensely fragrant late-winter flowers. It is gorgeous but finicky, demanding perfect drainage and resenting disturbance.

shrub

Toad Lily

Toad lily is a shade perennial bearing exotic, orchid-like flowers heavily speckled with purple in late summer and fall. Its intricate blooms reward a close look in the woodland garden.

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Persian Ironwood

Persian ironwood is a tough, slow-growing tree celebrated for spectacular multicolored fall foliage and beautiful flaking bark. Its tiny red flowers appear on bare branches in late winter.

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Kousa Dogwood

Kousa dogwood is an elegant small tree with pointed white bracts in late spring, raspberry-like fruit, and striking exfoliating bark. It is more disease-resistant than the native flowering dogwood.

tree

Black Cherry

Black cherry is a native North American hardwood valued for its fine reddish furniture timber, drooping clusters of white spring flowers, and small dark fruits borne in late summer.

tree

Heavenly Bamboo

An evergreen-to-semi-evergreen shrub with lacy, bamboo-like foliage that flushes red in cool weather, plus white summer flowers and showy red winter berries. Despite the name, it is not a true bamboo.

shrub

Heather

Heather is a low, evergreen shrub that blankets moorlands with a haze of tiny pink, purple or white flowers in late summer. It needs acidic soil and is prized for ground cover and year-round foliage color.

shrub

Witch Hazel

Witch hazel is a deciduous shrub or small tree famous for fragrant, spidery yellow flowers that bloom in late fall or winter when little else does.

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False Indigo

A long-lived, shrubby perennial legume with spires of indigo-blue, lupine-like flowers in late spring and attractive blue-green foliage all season.

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Weigela

An easy deciduous shrub smothered in trumpet-shaped pink, red or white flowers in late spring that attract hummingbirds and bees. Many cultivars also offer burgundy or variegated foliage for season-long interest.

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Fringe Tree

A small native tree or large shrub that produces airy, cloud-like clusters of fragrant, fringe-like white flowers in late spring. Its feathery blooms give it the name old man's beard.

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Bird's Nest Fern

An epiphytic fern that forms a rosette of broad, undivided, ripple-edged fronds around a central nest-like crown. Unlike lacy ferns, its simple glossy leaves make it forgiving and bold indoors.

fern

Snowbell Tree

A graceful small tree that hangs with rows of fragrant, bell-shaped white flowers in late spring. Its horizontal branching shows the dangling blooms off to perfection.

tree

Loquat Tree

An evergreen subtropical fruit tree bearing clusters of orange fruit in late winter and spring. Ornamental and easy to grow, it offers lush foliage and unusually timed blossoms.

tree

Chervil

A delicate annual culinary herb with lacy, fern-like leaves, grown in gardens. One of the classic French fines herbes, it prefers cool weather and light shade.

herb

Franklin Tree

The Franklin tree is a rare deciduous tree extinct in the wild, surviving only in cultivation from seed collected in the 1700s. It bears fragrant white camellia-like flowers in late summer and fiery red fall color.

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Turtlehead

Turtlehead is a moisture-loving native perennial whose hooded, two-lipped flowers resemble a turtle's head. It blooms in late summer and thrives in wet, partly shaded gardens.

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Peony

A long-lived perennial famous for huge, often fragrant late-spring blooms in shades of pink, white, and red. Peonies are tough, cold-loving, and can thrive for decades.

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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.

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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

Rabbit's Foot Fern

The Rabbit's Foot Fern is named for the fuzzy, silvery rhizomes that creep over the pot's edge like little furry feet. Its lacy, delicate fronds and unusual surface roots make it a striking, conversation-starting houseplant.

fern

Great Blue Lobelia

A native North American perennial producing tall spikes of vivid blue, two-lipped flowers in late summer. It is the blue counterpart to the red cardinal flower and loves moist ground.

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