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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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.

shrub

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.

flower

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.

tree

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.

tree

Cherry Blossom Tree

Cherry blossom trees are ornamental flowering cherries famed for their spectacular spring bloom of pink or white blossoms. Central to Japanese hanami tradition, they are short-lived but beloved worldwide.

tree

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.

shrub

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.

flower

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

Cherry Blossom

Cherry blossoms are ornamental flowering cherry trees famed for clouds of pink or white spring blossoms. They are cultural icons in Japan, where they are celebrated as sakura.

tree

Kwanzan Cherry

A flowering cherry prized for its showy, fully double, deep-pink pompom blossoms in mid-spring. Its upright vase shape and dense blooms make it a popular street and lawn tree.

tree

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.

shrub

Plum Yew

Plum Yew is a shade-tolerant evergreen conifer resembling a yew but with longer needles and plum-like fleshy seed cones. It is valued as a tough, deer-resistant landscape shrub for shady gardens.

shrub

Hinoki Cypress

Hinoki Cypress is an elegant evergreen conifer with rich green, fan-like foliage held in graceful sprays. Slow-growing dwarf cultivars are popular for gardens, containers, and bonsai.

tree

Yoshino Cherry

An ornamental cherry famous for clouds of pale pink-to-white blossoms in early spring. It is the iconic tree of Washington, D.C.'s Tidal Basin and Japan's cherry-blossom season.

tree

Coral Bark Maple

Coral bark maple is a Japanese maple cultivar famous for its glowing coral-red young stems that brighten the winter landscape. Its spring leaves emerge soft green and turn golden-yellow in fall.

tree

Kudzu

Kudzu is a fast-growing climbing vine infamous for smothering trees, buildings, and landscapes across the southeastern United States at remarkable speed.

shrub

Devil's Backbone

A shrubby succulent euphorbia famous for its distinctive zigzagging stems and small red-bracted flowers shaped like tiny birds. Often grown indoors for its sculptural, jointed form.

succulent

Tree Ivy

Tree ivy is a rare bigeneric hybrid between Japanese aralia and English ivy, combining glossy, ivy-shaped leaves with an upright, shrubby stem. It is an easy, shade-tolerant foliage plant for cool rooms and shady gardens.

houseplant

Cleome

Cleome is a tall, airy annual topped with spidery clusters of pink, white, or purple flowers and long whisker-like seedpods, blooming all summer.

flower

False Aralia

False aralia is grown for its delicate, lacy foliage - slender, saw-toothed leaflets that radiate like fingers and emerge coppery before darkening to near-black green. It brings a fine, airy texture to bright indoor spaces.

houseplant

Zebra Plant

The zebra plant is a striking Brazilian houseplant prized for glossy dark leaves boldly striped in white and short-lived golden bract spikes. It is notoriously fussy about humidity and watering.

houseplant

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

Self-Heal

A low, spreading mint-family herb with squat spikes of violet flowers, forming a tough, pollinator-friendly mat across lawns, meadows, and woodland edges.

herb

Horsetail

An ancient, fern-related plant with jointed, hollow stems and whorls of needle-like branches that resemble a horse's tail. It is a persistent weed of damp ground, spreading by deep rhizomes and reproducing by spores.

fern