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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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

Garlic

Garlic is a pungent bulbous member of the onion family grown worldwide as a garden and field crop, recognized by its strap-like foliage and segmented underground bulb.

herb

Eastern Redbud

A small understory tree famous for the cloud of pink-purple flowers that bloom directly on its bare branches in early spring. Native to eastern North America.

tree

Cholla Cactus

A group of shrubby to treelike desert cacti with cylindrical, jointed segments and barbed spines that detach easily. Iconic plants of the American Southwest deserts.

succulent

Burning Bush

A deciduous shrub famous for its fiery crimson-red fall foliage and distinctive corky 'wings' along the stems. Tough and adaptable, it is also invasive in parts of North America.

shrub

Black Walnut

A large, valuable native hardwood prized for its rich, dark timber. Its roots release juglone, a compound that inhibits the growth of many nearby plants.

tree

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

Banana Plant

The banana is a giant tropical herb, not a true tree, grown for its fruit and dramatic paddle-shaped leaves. Its 'trunk' is actually a pseudostem of tightly rolled leaf sheaths.

herb

Vinca

A heat- and drought-tolerant annual with glossy leaves and pinwheel flowers, annual vinca blooms nonstop through the hottest part of summer.

flower

Siberian Fir

Siberian Fir is an extremely cold-hardy conifer of the Russian taiga, with soft fragrant needles. Its aromatic needle oil is used in perfumes and fragrances.

tree

River Birch

A fast-growing native birch famous for its showy, peeling cinnamon-and-cream bark and tolerance of wet soils. The most heat-tolerant of North American birches.

tree

Rambutan Tree

The rambutan is a tropical evergreen tree bearing showy clusters of red, soft-spined fruit. It demands hot, humid, frost-free conditions.

tree

Pigweed

Pigweed is a vigorous annual weed of the amaranth family with reddish roots and dense seed clusters, and a major agricultural pest.

herb

Orchid

The moth orchid is the most popular indoor orchid, prized for arching sprays of long-lasting blooms. Despite a delicate look, it is one of the easiest orchids to grow at home.

houseplant

Million Bells

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

flower

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

Water Oak

Water oak is a fast-growing, semi-evergreen red-oak-group tree of the southeastern US, common along streams and in yards. It has spatula-shaped leaves but is relatively short-lived.

tree

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

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

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