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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Papaya Tree

A fast-growing tropical plant with a single trunk topped by a crown of large lobed leaves and clusters of melon-like fruit. It can fruit within a year of planting.

tree

Nettle

A vigorous perennial herb famous for the stinging hairs on its leaves and stems. It thrives in rich, damp soils across temperate regions.

herb

Meyer Lemon

A compact, productive citrus tree thought to be a cross between a lemon and a mandarin or orange, with thin, fragrant skin and rounder fruit than a standard lemon.

tree

Million Bells

A trailing relative of the petunia, million bells smothers itself in small bell-shaped flowers all season and needs no deadheading.

flower

Horse Chestnut

Horse chestnut is a large deciduous shade tree famous for its showy upright spikes of spring flowers and shiny brown conkers in spiky husks.

tree

Irish Yew

Irish Yew is a distinctive columnar cultivar of English yew with a tight, upright form, dark needles whorled around the stems, and red arils.

shrub

Horseradish

A hardy perennial in the cabbage family grown for its thick, white taproot. Vigorous and long-lived, it can become invasive once established.

herb

Heartleaf Philodendron

An easy trailing vine with glossy, heart-shaped leaves that thrives in a wide range of conditions. Often confused with pothos but with softer, thinner leaves.

houseplant

Grapefruit Tree

The grapefruit is a large evergreen citrus tree grown for its big fruit with pink, red, or white flesh. It arose as a hybrid of pomelo and sweet orange.

tree

Cleome

Cleome is a tall, airy annual topped with spidery clusters of pink, white, or purple flowers and long whisker-like seedpods, blooming all summer.

flower

Butternut Squash

Butternut squash is a winter squash with a tan, bell-shaped rind grown on vigorous trailing vines. The hard-skinned fruit stores well for months.

herb

Artichoke

The globe artichoke is a striking thistle grown in gardens for its large, scaly flower buds. Left unharvested, the buds open into large, vivid purple blooms.

herb

Wintercreeper

Wintercreeper is an extremely tough evergreen groundcover or climbing shrub, often grown for its variegated foliage. It tolerates harsh sites but is invasive in many regions.

shrub

Wisteria Tree

A wisteria tree is a wisteria vine trained and pruned into a small free-standing tree form, prized for cascading clusters of fragrant purple-blue spring flowers. It is vigorous and requires regular pruning.

tree

Yarrow

Yarrow is a tough, drought-tolerant perennial with feathery foliage and flat-topped clusters of tiny flowers. It is a popular low-maintenance plant for pollinator and meadow gardens.

herb

Starfish Cactus

A clumping stem succulent that produces enormous, hairy, star-shaped maroon flowers resembling a starfish. The blooms smell of carrion to attract flies, earning it the name carrion plant.

succulent

Sitka Spruce

Sitka Spruce is the largest spruce in the world, a towering conifer of the cool, wet Pacific Northwest coast. Its strong, lightweight wood is prized for aircraft, boats, and musical instruments.

tree

Silver Fir

Silver Fir is a tall European forest conifer with flat, glossy needles bearing two silvery bands beneath. It was the original Christmas tree of central Europe and is an important timber species.

tree

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

Shepherd's Purse

Shepherd's purse is a common annual weed of the mustard family named for its distinctive heart-shaped seed pods, found in gardens, fields, and roadsides worldwide.

herb

Smoke Tree

A deciduous shrub or small tree named for the airy, smoke-like plumes of fading flower stalks that envelop it in summer. Many cultivars also feature striking purple foliage.

shrub

Rose Mallow

A vigorous perennial hibiscus native to North American wetlands, famous for its enormous dinner-plate-sized blooms in white, pink, or red with a contrasting eye.

flower

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

Rose

The rose is the world's most beloved flowering shrub, a thorny perennial grown for thousands of years for its fragrant, many-petaled blooms in nearly every color but true blue.

shrub