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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Lemon Lime Dracaena

Lemon Lime Dracaena is a vivid cultivar with chartreuse-and-green striped leaves that brighten any room. Easy and upright-growing, it offers the durability of Dracaena with a punch of color.

houseplant

Hosta

The premier foliage perennial for shade, grown for bold mounds of ribbed leaves in greens, blues, golds, and variegated patterns. Lavender or white flower spikes are a summer bonus.

houseplant

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.

tree

Dragon Tree

The dragon tree is an easy-care indoor tree with slender, arching stems topped by spiky rosettes of narrow, red-edged green leaves. It tolerates low light and infrequent watering.

tree

Corn Plant

The corn plant is a sturdy indoor tree with thick woody canes topped by arching, corn-like leaves, often with a yellow-green center stripe. It is famously tolerant of low light and neglect.

houseplant

Carpetweed

A low, mat-forming summer annual that spreads flat across the ground in a star-like pattern of whorled leaves. It is a common weed of gardens, lawns and bare soil, germinating in warm weather.

herb

Boston Fern

The Boston fern is a lush, graceful fern with arching fronds of small leaflets, popular for hanging baskets and shaded porches. It needs consistent moisture and humidity to thrive.

fern

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea is a thorny tropical climbing shrub blanketed in vivid papery bracts of magenta, purple, orange, or red. It thrives in heat and sun and blooms most when kept on the dry side.

shrub

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are a cool-season brassica that produces dozens of small, cabbage-like buds along a tall central stalk. Slow to mature, they are a hallmark of autumn and winter gardens.

herb

Bitterroot

A low, fleshy-leaved alpine succulent of western North America, bitterroot produces showy pink-to-white flowers on otherwise nearly leafless plants. It is the state flower of Montana.

succulent

Begonia Maculata

Begonia maculata is the iconic polka dot begonia, with olive-green angel-wing leaves dotted in silver and backed in deep red. It produces clusters of white flowers under good conditions.

houseplant

Sage

Sage is a hardy Mediterranean shrub-herb with soft, gray-green aromatic leaves, widely grown as a culinary herb and ornamental in sunny gardens.

herb

Borage

A fast-growing annual herb with brilliant blue star-shaped flowers and bristly, cucumber-scented leaves. A magnet for bees, it self-seeds freely and is a favorite of pollinator gardens.

herb

Wild Indigo

A long-lived native prairie perennial that forms a shrub-like mound of blue-green foliage topped by spikes of indigo-blue, pea-like flowers. Its deep taproot makes it exceptionally drought tolerant and nearly permanent in the garden.

flower

Verbena

Verbenas are sun-loving plants that produce dense clusters of small, vivid flowers over long seasons, attracting butterflies and bees. They range from low spreading bedding types to tall airy border perennials.

flower

Philodendron

A large, diverse genus of tropical aroids ranging from easy trailing vines to bold upright specimens. The heartleaf philodendron is the classic, nearly indestructible trailing form beloved by beginners.

houseplant

Painted Dropwing

Important note: the Painted Dropwing (also called the violet dropwing) is not a plant but a dragonfly, Trithemis annulata. Mature males are a striking violet-pink with red-veined wings, often seen perched at the edges of warm ponds and streams.

flower

Olive Tree

The olive is a long-lived evergreen Mediterranean tree, a fruiting tree cultivated for thousands of years. Gnarled, silvery and remarkably drought-hardy, it is also a popular ornamental and container plant.

tree

Flowering Tobacco

An ornamental relative of commercial tobacco grown for its tubular, star-shaped flowers that open and release a jasmine-like scent in the evening. It comes in white, green, red and pink, attracting moths and hummingbirds.

flower

Cottonwood

Cottonwood is a fast-growing deciduous tree of North American riverbanks, named for the fluffy, cotton-like seeds that fill the air in early summer. Large and vigorous, it provides quick shade and vital riparian habitat.

tree

Beautyberry

A deciduous shrub famous for the clusters of vivid metallic-purple berries that wrap its arching branches in fall. Native to the southeastern US, it is easy, wildlife-friendly, and unmistakable in autumn.

shrub

Wood Betony

Wood betony is a clump-forming perennial herb with crinkled, scalloped leaves and spikes of reddish-purple flowers beloved by bees. It was a widely grown garden plant in medieval Europe.

herb

Sugar Maple

Sugar maple is a hallmark of North America's blazing autumn forests and the maple traditionally tapped for its sap. It is a large, long-lived shade tree with dense, hard wood prized for furniture and flooring.

tree

Peperomia

A diverse genus of compact, slow-growing houseplants with thick, often succulent-like leaves in a huge range of textures and colors. Their small size makes them ideal for desks and shelves.

houseplant