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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Noble Fir

Noble Fir is a stately Pacific Northwest conifer with blue-green upswept needles and large upright cones. It is one of the most popular and long-lasting Christmas trees.

tree

Speedwell

Speedwell is a hardy perennial prized for its upright spikes of densely packed blue, purple, pink or white flowers that bloom for weeks in summer. It is a magnet for bees and butterflies and thrives in sunny, well-drained borders.

flower

Potato

The potato is a cool-season nightshade-family plant grown for its starchy underground tubers, among the world's most widely cultivated staple crops. It is grown from 'seed potatoes' that sprout into leafy plants.

herb

Mockernut Hickory

Mockernut hickory is a sturdy, slow-growing eastern hickory with fragrant, densely hairy leaves and very thick-shelled nuts. Its strong wood and golden fall color make it a valued forest and shade tree.

tree

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's lace is a biennial wildflower with delicate, flat-topped clusters of tiny white flowers and a single dark floret in the center. It is the wild ancestor of the cultivated carrot.

flower

Mulberry Tree

A fast-growing deciduous tree producing abundant blackberry-like fruit. White mulberry is also famous as the sole food of silkworms.

tree

Firewheel Tree

The firewheel tree is an Australian rainforest tree named for its striking red-and-orange flowers arranged in spoke-like wheels. It has glossy lobed foliage and makes a handsome ornamental and street tree.

tree

Dutchman's Breeches

A delicate spring ephemeral whose white, pantaloon-shaped flowers hang in a row like tiny upside-down breeches. It blooms early in woodlands then vanishes by summer.

flower

Dwarf Alberta Spruce

Dwarf Alberta spruce is a compact, naturally cone-shaped evergreen with dense, soft needles. Its slow growth and tidy pyramid form make it a popular accent and container conifer.

tree

Peace Lily

The peace lily is a popular flowering houseplant with glossy dark green leaves and elegant white hooded blooms. It thrives in low light and even tells you when it's thirsty by dramatically drooping.

houseplant

Paper Bark Birch

A graceful northern tree famous for its peeling, papery white bark and fluttering golden fall foliage. Its bark was traditionally used by Indigenous peoples to build canoes.

tree

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

American Elm

American elm is a stately deciduous tree famous for its graceful vase-shaped canopy, once a beloved street tree until Dutch elm disease devastated populations; disease-resistant cultivars now revive its use.

tree

Warneckii Dracaena

Warneckii Dracaena is a cultivar with sword-shaped green leaves edged and striped in white and gray-green. Architectural and tough, it's a long-standing favorite for low-maintenance interior greenery.

houseplant

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

Sassafras

An aromatic native tree known for its three differently shaped leaves on the same plant, spicy fragrance, and brilliant fall color.

tree

Paper Birch

Paper birch is a northern tree famous for its peeling, chalky-white bark used historically for canoes and writing. It brings bright bark and golden fall color to cool, moist landscapes.

tree

Marshmallow

Marshmallow is a soft, downy wetland perennial in the mallow family, with velvety gray-green foliage and pale pink to white flowers. It grows in damp meadows and along riverbanks.

herb

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

American Holly

American Holly is a slow-growing evergreen tree of the eastern United States, prized for its spiny leathery leaves and bright red winter berries. It is a classic source of holiday greenery.

tree

Plantain

Broadleaf plantain is a tough, low-growing lawn and trail-side herb (not the banana relative) with broad ribbed leaves arranged in a flat rosette. It is one of the most common colonizers of compacted ground.

herb

Lambsquarters

Lambsquarters is a fast-growing annual weed with mealy, diamond-shaped (goosefoot) leaves and a whitish, mealy coating on new growth.

herb

Goatsbeard

Goatsbeard is a robust, shade-loving perennial that produces tall, feathery plumes of creamy-white flowers, resembling a giant astilbe. It is a striking native woodland plant for moist, partly shaded gardens.

shrub

Bearberry

A hardy, mat-forming evergreen groundcover shrub of cold northern regions, with glossy leaves, pink bell flowers, and red berries favored by bears and birds.

shrub