Plant Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.

all houseplant flower tree shrub succulent herb fern grass

Boxelder

A fast-growing, weedy native maple unusual for its compound leaves and paired winged seeds, tough and adaptable but often considered a nuisance tree.

tree

Blue Spruce

Blue Spruce is a striking conifer famous for its stiff, silvery-blue needles and classic pyramidal form. It is a popular ornamental and Christmas tree in cold climates.

tree

Bachelor's Button

Bachelor's button, or cornflower, is an easy cottage-garden annual famous for its intense true-blue, fringed flowers that are excellent for cutting.

flower

Avocado Tree

The avocado is a broadleaf evergreen fruiting tree. Frost-tender and vigorous, it is a popular subtropical orchard tree and a fun, if slow-fruiting, houseplant from a sprouted pit.

tree

Watch Chain

A quirky succulent with thin stems densely packed with tiny overlapping triangular leaves, creating a braided, chain-like texture. It forms low bushy clumps and is very easy to grow.

succulent

Venus Flytrap

The iconic carnivorous plant whose hinged, toothed leaf traps snap shut on insects in a fraction of a second. Native only to a small region of the Carolinas, it needs sun, pure water, and a winter dormancy.

houseplant

Weeping Birch

Weeping birch is the European white or silver birch, prized for its chalky white peeling bark and slender pendulous branchlets that sway in the breeze. Cultivars like 'Youngii' form a strongly weeping dome.

tree

Wandering Dude

A fast-growing trailing plant with shimmering purple-and-silver striped leaves and deep purple undersides. It roots almost anywhere and is one of the easiest houseplants to grow and propagate.

houseplant

Tarragon

Tarragon is an aromatic culinary herb grown in gardens for its slender, glossy, anise-scented foliage. The 'French' type rarely sets viable seed and is propagated by division or cuttings.

herb

Stinging Nettle

Stinging nettle is a tall perennial herb covered in tiny hollow hairs that release an irritating fluid on contact, producing a brief stinging sensation. It has a long history as a fiber and dye plant.

herb

Rhodiola

Rhodiola is a hardy, succulent alpine perennial of cold northern mountains, forming low rosettes of fleshy blue-green leaves and clusters of yellow flowers. Cut roots smell faintly of rose.

succulent

Saskatoon Berry

Saskatoon berry is a hardy North American shrub producing blueberry-like fruit and showy spring blossoms. It is cold-tolerant, low-maintenance, and valued as an ornamental and wildlife shrub.

shrub

Silver Maple

Silver maple is a fast-growing deciduous tree named for the silvery undersides of its deeply cut leaves, which flash in the wind; it is hardy and adaptable but has brittle wood prone to storm damage.

tree

Tamarack

Tamarack is a hardy North American deciduous conifer of cold bogs and wetlands, turning glowing gold each autumn before shedding its soft needles. It is one of the most cold-tolerant trees in North America.

tree

Powder Puff Cactus

A clustering pincushion cactus wrapped in silky white hairs, with hooked central spines hidden beneath. Rings of small creamy or pink flowers appear readily, even on young plants.

succulent

Angel's Trumpet

A tropical shrub or small tree bearing enormous, pendulous trumpet-shaped flowers that release a powerful fragrance at night. It is grown as a dramatic ornamental in warm climates.

shrub

Haworthia

A small, slow-growing rosette succulent often called the zebra plant for the raised white bands on its dark green leaves. Compact and slow-growing, it thrives on neglect and tolerates lower light than most succulents.

succulent

Ragweed

A common annual weed that produces large amounts of lightweight, wind-blown pollen in late summer and fall. It has fern-like, deeply divided leaves and inconspicuous greenish flower spikes.

herb

Plumeria Tree

A small tropical tree beloved for its intensely fragrant, waxy flowers used in Hawaiian leis. Plumeria blooms in shades of white, yellow, pink, and red atop thick, sculptural branches.

tree

Prickly Lettuce

Prickly lettuce is a tall annual or biennial weed and the closest wild relative of cultivated lettuce. It is recognized by spiny leaf midribs, milky sap, and leaves that twist to align vertically like a compass.

herb

London Plane Tree

The London plane is a large, pollution-tolerant hybrid shade tree famous for its mottled, peeling camouflage bark and spherical seed balls, making it one of the world's most planted urban street trees.

tree

Lilac

Lilacs are hardy deciduous shrubs cherished for their intensely fragrant spring flower clusters in shades of purple, lavender, pink, and white. They are long-lived and easy to grow in cold climates.

shrub

Lantana

Lantana is a tough, heat- and drought-tolerant flowering shrub whose rounded clusters of tiny blooms often shift color as they age. It is a magnet for butterflies but is invasive in many warm regions.

shrub

Horseweed

Horseweed is a tall, weedy native annual with a single bristly stalk topped by clouds of tiny flowers; it is a prolific seeder and one of the first weeds to evolve widespread herbicide resistance.

herb