Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Katsura Tree
A graceful Asian shade tree with heart-shaped blue-green leaves that turn gold and apricot in fall, famously releasing a sweet scent of burnt sugar or cotton candy.
tree
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.
flower
Jacaranda
A subtropical tree famous for spectacular clouds of violet-blue trumpet flowers in spring, paired with delicate fern-like foliage and a broad, airy canopy.
tree
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
Gladiolus
Gladiolus is a tall summer bulb that sends up dramatic spikes of funnel-shaped flowers in nearly every color, a staple of cutting gardens and floral arrangements.
flower
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
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
Castor Bean
Castor bean is a fast-growing, dramatic plant with huge tropical leaves and spiny seed pods, often used as a bold ornamental for an instant tropical effect in gardens.
shrub
Chinese Evergreen
A tough, colorful foliage plant tolerant of low light, valued for its patterned leaves in green, silver, pink or red. A reliable beginner-friendly houseplant.
houseplant
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
Butterfly Weed
Butterfly weed is a native milkweed bearing flat clusters of brilliant orange flowers in summer. It is a top nectar plant for butterflies and a larval host for monarchs.
flower
Catmint
A soft, billowing perennial with gray-green aromatic foliage and a long haze of small lavender-blue flowers. Tough, drought-proof, deer-resistant, and a magnet for bees.
herb
Blanket Flower
A heat-loving, daisy-like perennial in fiery bands of red, orange, and yellow that bloom nonstop all summer. Tough, drought-proof, and beloved by bees and butterflies.
flower
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
Barberry
A dense, thorny deciduous shrub grown for colorful red, gold, or purple foliage and bright red berries. Tough and adaptable, though invasive in parts of North America.
shrub
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
American Beech
A majestic, slow-growing native hardwood with smooth silvery-gray bark and golden fall leaves that often cling through winter. A dominant tree of eastern forests.
tree
Angelonia
Often called summer snapdragon, angelonia produces upright spikes of orchid-like flowers that thrive in heat and humidity all season without deadheading.
flower
Annual Phlox
A bushy Texas native annual that produces dense, rounded clusters of starry flowers in nearly every color, prized for long-lasting summer color in beds and containers.
flower
Thimble Cactus
A tiny clustering cactus that produces masses of little thimble-sized offsets which detach at the slightest touch. The pale spines give the cluster a soft, frosty look.
succulent