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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Lawson Cypress

Lawson Cypress, or Port Orford Cedar, is a tall, graceful conifer of the Pacific Northwest with flattened, fern-like fragrant foliage. It has produced hundreds of garden cultivars in many colors and forms.

tree

Illawarra Flame Tree

The Illawarra flame tree is a striking Australian native that sheds its leaves and covers itself in masses of brilliant scarlet bell-shaped flowers in early summer. It is one of Australia's most spectacular flowering trees.

tree

Gazania

A sun-loving, drought-tolerant South African plant with large, daisy-like flowers in brilliant orange, yellow, red, pink and cream, often boldly striped. The blooms open in bright sun and close in shade or cloudy weather.

flower

Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a small ornamental tree beloved for its spring display of showy white or pink bracts. Native to eastern North America, it offers four-season interest with berries and red fall foliage.

tree

Engelmann Spruce

Engelmann Spruce is a tall, narrow conifer of high western mountains, often forming dense subalpine forests near treeline. Its soft, resonant wood is prized for musical instrument soundboards.

tree

Culver's Root

Culver's root is a tall, elegant North American prairie perennial with whorled leaves and slender, candelabra-like spires of white to pale-lilac flowers. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies in summer.

flower

Bilberry

A low-growing wild relative of the blueberry, native to northern European heaths and woodlands. It forms a small deciduous shrub bearing dark blue-black berries on distinctive angular green stems.

shrub

Amaranth

Amaranth is a vigorous annual grown for its dramatic drooping crimson flower tassels and broad, often red-tinged leaves. It has been cultivated for thousands of years across the Americas, Asia, and Africa.

herb

Angel Wing Begonia

A cane-stemmed begonia with asymmetrical, wing-shaped leaves often spotted silver and flushed red underneath, topped by dangling clusters of flowers. It is a free-flowering, upright houseplant.

houseplant

Wisteria

Wisteria is a vigorous woody climbing vine famous for dramatic cascades of fragrant purple, blue, or white flowers in spring. It is beautiful but can become invasive and needs firm pruning.

shrub

White Oak

White oak is a majestic, long-lived North American hardwood with rounded leaf lobes and prized, water-tight timber. A keystone forest tree, it can live for centuries and supports a vast web of wildlife.

tree

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

Sandbur

Sandbur is a warm-season grass infamous for its sharp, spiny seed burs that cling painfully to skin, clothing, and animal fur. It thrives in dry, sandy, disturbed soils and is a troublesome weed of lawns and pastures.

grass

Cebu Blue Pothos

Cebu Blue is a fast-growing aroid prized for its shimmery, silvery-blue lance-shaped leaves. As it matures it can fenestrate, developing splits reminiscent of its relative Epipremnum pinnatum.

houseplant

Privet

A fast-growing, dense deciduous-to-semi-evergreen shrub long used for clipped hedges. It bears panicles of small white flowers and black berries, but is invasive in many regions.

shrub

Purslane

Purslane is a low, succulent annual with fleshy paddle-shaped leaves and trailing reddish stems. A widespread plant of warm, sunny ground, it grows both wild and as a cultivated garden vegetable.

succulent

Prayer Plant

A low-growing tropical foliage plant famous for folding its decoratively veined leaves upward at night, like hands in prayer. Its oval leaves show striking patterns of green, cream and red.

houseplant

Rattlesnake Master

A distinctive prairie perennial with yucca-like, spiny-edged leaves and greenish-white, golf-ball-shaped flower heads. Despite its name, it is a member of the carrot family.

flower

Pignut Hickory

Pignut hickory is a tall, upland hickory of eastern North America with smooth gray bark and pear-shaped nuts. It is valued for tough wood, brilliant golden fall color, and as wildlife habitat.

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

Paperbark Maple

Paperbark maple is a small ornamental maple famous for its cinnamon-colored bark that peels in papery curls year-round and its fiery red-orange autumn foliage. It offers four-season interest in a compact form.

tree

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

Monstera Obliqua

A rare, almost mythical Monstera whose paper-thin leaves are more hole than leaf, with fenestrations covering up to 90% of the blade. Often confused with the common adansonii, true obliqua is extremely rare.

houseplant

Mock Orange

A deciduous shrub grown for its profuse, intensely fragrant white late-spring flowers that smell like orange blossom. Easy and hardy, it is a nostalgic favorite of cottage gardens.

shrub