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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Australian Willow

Australian Willow is a graceful evergreen tree with weeping, willow-like foliage that is not a true willow but a member of the citrus family. Prized as a tough, low-litter street and shade tree for hot, dry climates.

tree

Cloudberry

Cloudberry is a low-growing Arctic and subarctic plant bearing distinctive amber berries. It demands cold, acidic, boggy conditions and is notoriously difficult to cultivate.

herb

Cheatgrass

Cheatgrass is an invasive winter annual grass of the western United States, notorious for its sharp seeds and for fueling more frequent, intense wildfires across rangelands.

grass

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

Bermuda Grass

Bermuda grass is a tough, sun-loving warm-season turfgrass prized for lawns and sports fields in warm climates, but notorious as an aggressive weed elsewhere. It spreads rapidly by both stolons and rhizomes.

grass

Mangosteen Tree

A slow-growing tropical evergreen known for its dark purple fruit with white segments. Notoriously demanding, it needs constant warmth and humidity and takes many years to fruit.

tree

African Milk Tree

The African milk tree is a fast-growing, upright succulent with ridged, branching green stems that resemble a cactus. Despite the look, it is a Euphorbia that exudes milky white sap when cut, not a true cactus.

succulent

Leyland Cypress

Leyland cypress is an extremely fast-growing evergreen conifer hybrid widely planted for hedges and privacy screens. Dense and columnar, it offers quick cover but can quickly outgrow its space if not maintained.

tree

Golden Rain Tree

The golden rain tree is a small to medium deciduous shade tree noted for its large sprays of bright yellow summer flowers followed by papery, lantern-like seed capsules. It is tough, adaptable, and popular as a street and lawn tree.

tree

Apache Pine

A southwestern pine of the Sierra Madre and Arizona–New Mexico borderlands, notable for very long, drooping needles and a grass-like seedling stage. Young trees resemble a tuft of grass before the trunk elongates.

tree

Yucca Palm

The yucca palm is not a true palm but a tough, drought-tolerant evergreen from Central America, prized as an architectural houseplant with rosettes of sword-shaped leaves atop woody canes.

shrub

Puncturevine

Puncturevine is a low, mat-forming summer weed notorious for its hard, spiny seed burs that puncture bicycle tires and bare feet. It thrives in hot, dry, disturbed ground and is widespread in warm regions worldwide.

herb

Indian Paintbrush

A vivid North American wildflower whose flame-colored display comes not from petals but from brightly tipped leaf-like bracts. It is a hemiparasite that taps the roots of neighboring plants, making it notoriously difficult to cultivate.

flower

Ground Ivy

Ground ivy is a creeping, aromatic perennial in the mint family with scalloped round leaves and blue-violet spring flowers, the same plant widely known as creeping Charlie. It forms dense mats in shady lawns and gardens and is notoriously persistent.

herb

Bradford Pear

Bradford pear is a fast-growing ornamental cultivar of Callery pear known for a uniform teardrop shape and clouds of white spring flowers. It is now widely regarded as an invasive species with notoriously weak, breakage-prone branching.

tree

Painted Dropwing

Important note: the Painted Dropwing (also called the violet dropwing) is not a plant but a dragonfly, Trithemis annulata. Mature males are a striking violet-pink with red-veined wings, often seen perched at the edges of warm ponds and streams.

flower

Yellow Nutsedge

Yellow nutsedge is a grass-like perennial sedge, not a true grass, that infests lawns, gardens and crops by spreading through underground tubers called 'nutlets'. The same tubers are also cultivated in some regions, where they are known as chufa or tiger nuts.

grass

Grass Pink Orchid

Grass Pink is a North American terrestrial bog orchid known for its magenta-pink, non-resupinate blooms whose lip sits on top of the flower. It grows from a corm in acidic wetlands and is notoriously difficult to cultivate outside its native habitat.

flower

Creeping Charlie

Creeping Charlie is a low, aromatic perennial in the mint family that spreads aggressively by creeping stems to form dense mats in lawns and shady gardens. Its scalloped, round leaves and small blue-violet flowers make it easy to recognize and notoriously hard to eradicate.

herb