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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Buddhist Pine

Buddhist Pine is a versatile evergreen conifer with long, soft, strap-like leaves, widely grown as a hedge, container plant, houseplant, and bonsai. Native to East Asia, it tolerates pruning and shade well.

shrub

Flowering Peach

The flowering peach is an ornamental form of the peach tree grown for its lavish spring display of double pink, red, or white blossoms. It is a showy small accent tree, prized in gardens and in East Asian culture.

tree

Broadleaf Plantain

Broadleaf plantain is a tough, low-growing perennial weed with a rosette of broad, ribbed leaves and slender flower spikes, found in lawns, paths and compacted ground worldwide. It is unrelated to the banana-like plantain fruit despite the shared name.

herb

Fennel

Fennel is an aromatic, feathery herb grown in gardens for its finely divided foliage and airy yellow flower heads; the Florence type forms a swollen bulb at the base of the leaves.

herb

Calamondin

Calamondin is a small ornamental citrus hybrid bearing abundant tiny orange fruit. Popular as a potted houseplant, it flowers and fruits nearly year-round.

tree

Fig

The common fig is a deciduous Mediterranean tree or large shrub grown for its bold lobed foliage and teardrop-shaped fruit. It is hardy, drought-tolerant, and one of the oldest cultivated plants.

tree

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

Florida Beauty

Florida Beauty is a shrubby dracaena with dark green, oval leaves heavily speckled in creamy gold, giving a gold-dust appearance. It is a compact, slow-growing foliage plant.

houseplant

Camellia Tree

The camellia is a glossy-leaved evergreen shrub or small tree bearing large, showy rose-like flowers in shades of red, pink and white during fall, winter and spring. It is a classic shade-garden ornamental.

shrub

Flame Violet

The Flame Violet is a trailing tropical plant grown for both its velvety, metallic-patterned leaves and its vivid red-orange flowers. A relative of the African violet, it spreads by runners to form a lush carpet.

houseplant

Calathea Triostar

A vivid prayer plant relative with variegated leaves splashed in cream, green, and pink, and dramatic deep-magenta undersides. Like other Marantaceae, its leaves fold up at night.

houseplant

Fig Tree

The common fig is a deciduous Mediterranean tree grown for its large lobed leaves and distinctive fruiting form. Easy to grow and forgiving, it is one of the oldest cultivated trees and thrives in warm gardens and containers.

tree

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

English Oak

English oak is the iconic, long-lived oak of Europe, with short-stalked lobed leaves and acorns on long stalks. A symbol of strength, it can live for centuries and supports vast biodiversity.

tree

Buttercup

Buttercups are cheerful wildflowers with glossy, cup-shaped yellow blooms that seem to glow in spring meadows.

flower

Empress Tree

The empress tree is an extremely fast-growing tree with huge fuzzy leaves and upright clusters of fragrant lavender, foxglove-like flowers in spring. It is admired for its rapid growth and bloom but is invasive in many regions.

tree

Bugleweed

Bugleweed is a low, fast-spreading evergreen groundcover prized for its glossy rosettes and spikes of blue-violet flowers in spring. It quickly carpets bare ground in sun or shade.

flower

Evening Primrose

A hardy biennial wildflower whose fragrant yellow blossoms open at dusk and close by midday, timed to attract night-flying moths. It forms a low rosette in its first year and a tall flowering stalk in its second.

flower

Broccoli

Broccoli is a cool-season member of the cabbage family grown for its dense clusters of green flower buds. It is best cut while the tight green heads are still closed, before they open into yellow flowers.

herb

Dewberry

Dewberry is a low, trailing relative of the blackberry that produces dark berries earlier in the season. Its sprawling thorny canes form ground-hugging mats.

shrub

Bok Choy

Bok choy is a fast-growing Asian leafy green with crisp white stalks and tender dark leaves. A cool-season vegetable, it matures quickly and is widely grown in gardens.

herb

Elephant Bush

Elephant bush is a fast-growing South African succulent shrub with small round jade-green leaves on reddish stems, popular as a houseplant, bonsai subject, and carbon-storing landscape plant.

succulent

Bromeliad

Bromeliads are tropical rosette plants grown for their long-lasting, brilliantly colored flower bracts. Many hold water in a central cup formed by their overlapping leaves.

houseplant

Dusty Miller

Grown for its felted, silvery-white foliage rather than flowers, dusty miller is a versatile foil plant that tolerates heat, drought, and salt.

flower

Bleeding Heart

Bleeding heart is a shade-loving perennial famous for arching stems hung with dangling, heart-shaped pink-and-white flowers. It blooms in spring and often goes dormant by midsummer.

flower

Dill

Dill is a feathery, aromatic annual herb in the carrot family, grown in herb gardens for its delicate foliage and oval seeds.

herb

Bluebell

Bluebells are spring bulbs that carpet woodlands in hazy drifts of nodding, violet-blue bells. The native English bluebell is a protected woodland icon, distinct from the more vigorous Spanish bluebell.

flower

Echinacea

Echinacea, or purple coneflower, is a hardy North American perennial with daisy-like pink-purple blooms, popular in prairie and pollinator gardens.

flower

Bottlebrush Tree

An evergreen Australian shrub or small tree whose cylindrical red flower spikes look exactly like bottle brushes. The nectar-rich blooms draw birds and pollinators.

shrub

English Ivy

English ivy is a vigorous evergreen climbing vine with lobed leaves, grown both as a houseplant and as an outdoor groundcover. It is attractive and adaptable but invasive in many regions.

houseplant

Blue Chalksticks

Blue chalksticks is a spreading ground-cover succulent with slender, upright, powdery blue-green finger-like leaves. Its cool blue color and low, mounding habit make it a popular landscape and container plant.

succulent

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

Buckhorn Plantain

A common perennial lawn and field weed with a basal rosette of narrow, ribbed leaves and bullet-shaped flower heads on tall leafless stalks. It is widespread and persistent in lawns, pastures and roadsides.

herb

Eastern White Pine

A tall, fast-growing native conifer with soft blue-green needles in bundles of five and long, slender cones. The largest conifer of the northeastern forests and a historic timber tree.

tree

Box Honeysuckle

Box honeysuckle is a small-leaved evergreen shrub used as a dense, fine-textured hedge or topiary, much like boxwood. It is fast-growing, shade-tolerant and easy to clip into shape.

shrub

Dracaena

A large genus of architectural foliage plants with strappy, often colorfully striped leaves on cane-like stems. Tough and drought-tolerant, dracaenas are reliable beginner houseplants that bring height and structure indoors.

houseplant

Bristlecone Pine

Bristlecone Pine is among the longest-lived organisms on Earth, with individuals exceeding 4,800 years old. These gnarled, weathered conifers cling to harsh, high-elevation mountains of the American West.

tree

Cyclamen

Cyclamen is a tuberous perennial famous for its swept-back, butterfly-like flowers and heart-shaped, silver-marbled leaves. The florist's cyclamen blooms through the cool months, going dormant in summer heat.

flower

Bull Thistle

Bull thistle is a spiny biennial weed with sharp, prickly leaves and large rose-purple flower heads that is both a pasture nuisance and a pollinator magnet.

flower

English Yew

English Yew is a long-lived evergreen conifer with dark needles and red berry-like arils, traditionally used for hedges and topiary.

tree

Blue Glow Agave

A compact hybrid agave forming a tidy rosette of blue-green leaves edged with a glowing red-and-yellow margin that lights up when backlit by sun. It is a refined, slow-growing landscape gem.

succulent

Endive

Endive is a leafy plant in the chicory family grown as a cool-season green. Curly (frisée) and broad-leaved (escarole) forms are both popular garden greens.

herb

Brunnera

Brunnera is a shade perennial grown for its large, heart-shaped leaves, often beautifully silvered, and its dainty sprays of sky-blue, forget-me-not-like flowers in spring. It is a standout foliage plant for woodland and shady borders.

flower

Dumb Cane

Dumb cane is a popular tropical houseplant with large, variegated cream-and-green leaves. It grows easily into a bushy, upright specimen and tolerates typical indoor conditions.

houseplant

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

Douglas Fir

Douglas fir is a towering western North American conifer prized as a timber and Christmas tree, recognizable by its soft flat needles and distinctive three-pointed bracts protruding from the cones.

tree

Basswood

Basswood, or American linden, is a large deciduous shade tree with big heart-shaped leaves and fragrant summer flowers beloved by bees. Its soft, pale wood is a favorite of woodcarvers.

tree

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