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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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

Oxeye Daisy

A classic white-and-yellow daisy native to Europe and naturalized across North America, the oxeye daisy is the wild ancestor of garden Shasta daisies. It thrives in meadows, roadsides, and disturbed ground.

flower

Overcup Oak

Overcup oak is a flood-tolerant white oak of southern US bottomlands, named for the acorn cap that nearly encloses the nut. Its toughness makes it an increasingly popular urban shade tree.

tree

Mullein

Mullein is a striking biennial that forms a rosette of soft, woolly leaves the first year and a towering yellow flower spike the second. It is a classic wildflower herb of dry, open ground.

herb

Hen And Chicks

Hen and chicks is a hardy rosette-forming succulent that spreads by producing clusters of offsets, or 'chicks,' around the central 'hen.' It is exceptionally cold-tolerant and thrives in rock gardens and containers.

succulent

Eastern Hemlock

Eastern hemlock is a graceful, shade-tolerant evergreen conifer of cool eastern forests, with soft flat needles and tiny cones; it is threatened across its range by the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid.

tree

Calathea

A group of tropical foliage plants prized for their elaborately patterned, often purple-backed leaves. Calatheas are humidity-loving and known for being fussy about water quality.

houseplant

Bunny Ear Cactus

The bunny ear cactus is a charming Mexican prickly pear whose flat, paddle-shaped pads grow in pairs resembling rabbit ears, dotted with tufts of fine golden glochids instead of long spines.

succulent

Cherry Blossom Tree

Cherry blossom trees are ornamental flowering cherries famed for their spectacular spring bloom of pink or white blossoms. Central to Japanese hanami tradition, they are short-lived but beloved worldwide.

tree

Apple Tree

The apple tree is a deciduous fruit tree grown worldwide for its familiar fruit. With thousands of cultivars and the need for cross-pollination, it is a rewarding but slightly demanding garden and orchard tree.

tree

Amaryllis

The popular indoor amaryllis is a bulb (genus Hippeastrum) that produces towering stalks topped with huge, trumpet-shaped flowers, often forced for winter bloom. True Amaryllis is a separate South African genus.

flower

White Clover

White clover is a low, creeping perennial legume with three-part leaves and round white flower heads, found in lawns, pastures and meadows worldwide. It fixes nitrogen in the soil and is a favorite of bees, making it both a beneficial cover plant and a common lawn 'weed'.

herb