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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Skimmia

Skimmia is a compact, shade-loving evergreen shrub valued for fragrant spring flowers, ornamental red winter berries, and showy red flower buds that decorate the plant all winter.

shrub

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha is a small, drought-tolerant evergreen shrub of India and the Mediterranean in the nightshade family. It has dull green leaves and small berries held in papery husks.

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Camellia

Camellias are elegant evergreen shrubs with glossy dark foliage and large, rose-like blooms in winter and early spring. Their long flowering season and lush leaves make them prized in shade gardens.

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Loquat Tree

An evergreen subtropical fruit tree bearing clusters of orange fruit in late winter and spring. Ornamental and easy to grow, it offers lush foliage and unusually timed blossoms.

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Kerria

Kerria is a graceful deciduous shrub in the rose family, grown for its arching green stems and cheerful golden-yellow spring flowers. It is one of the few flowering shrubs that blooms well in shade.

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Saucer Magnolia

A deciduous magnolia famous for large, goblet-shaped pink-and-white blooms that open on bare branches in early spring. It is one of the most widely planted flowering trees in temperate gardens.

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Kousa Dogwood

Kousa dogwood is an elegant small tree with pointed white bracts in late spring, raspberry-like fruit, and striking exfoliating bark. It is more disease-resistant than the native flowering dogwood.

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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.

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Heliotrope

A tender shrubby perennial loved for dense clusters of tiny purple flowers with an intense vanilla-cherry fragrance, earning it the nickname 'cherry pie plant.' It is grown as a fragrant bedding and container plant in most climates.

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Crabapple Tree

A small ornamental tree prized for its profuse spring blossoms and colorful, persistent miniature apples. Flowering crabapples are among the most popular landscape trees in temperate climates.

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Allium

Ornamental alliums are bulbs grown for their dramatic spherical flower heads on tall, leafless stems. Related to onions and garlic, they add bold architectural interest and are largely pest-proof.

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Plum Tree

The plum tree is a deciduous stone-fruit tree grown for its fruit and early spring blossom. European plums (Prunus domestica) and Japanese plums (Prunus salicina) are the main cultivated types.

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Lilac Tree

The Japanese lilac tree is the tree-form member of the lilac family, producing huge creamy-white fragrant flower plumes in early summer. It is a tough, compact street and lawn tree.

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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.

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Umbrella Pine

Japanese Umbrella Pine is a unique living-fossil conifer, the sole member of its family, with glossy whorls of needle-like cladodes arranged like the ribs of an umbrella. It is slow-growing and prized as an ornamental.

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Snowbell Tree

A graceful small tree that hangs with rows of fragrant, bell-shaped white flowers in late spring. Its horizontal branching shows the dangling blooms off to perfection.

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Persimmon Tree

A deciduous fruit tree grown for its glossy orange fruit that ripens in autumn and clings to bare branches like ornaments, and for its vivid fall foliage.

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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.

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Anemone

Anemones, also called windflowers, are graceful perennials and bulbs that produce delicate, cup- or daisy-shaped flowers in spring or fall. Japanese anemones in particular bring valuable late-season color to shady borders.

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Living Stones

Tiny, stem-less succulents that mimic pebbles to avoid being grazed. They split to reveal new leaves and produce daisy-like flowers, but need a strict dry regime.

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Pittosporum

Pittosporum is a versatile evergreen shrub with whorled glossy leaves and clusters of intensely orange-blossom-scented spring flowers. It makes an excellent hedge or screen in mild climates.

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Mexican Sunflower

A tall, fast-growing annual prized for its vivid orange-red daisy flowers that are magnets for butterflies and bees. It thrives in heat and poor soil where many other plants struggle.

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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.

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Sago Palm

An ancient, palm-like cycad with a stout trunk and a symmetrical crown of stiff, feathery dark-green fronds. Despite the name it is not a true palm.

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