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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Air Plant

Air plants are rootless epiphytes that absorb water and nutrients through their leaves, so they can grow mounted on wood, in shells, or simply set on a shelf without any soil.

houseplant

Basswood

Basswood, or American linden, is a large deciduous shade tree with big heart-shaped leaves and fragrant summer flowers beloved by bees. Its soft, pale wood is a favorite of woodcarvers.

tree

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

Eastern Red Cedar

Eastern Red Cedar is a tough, aromatic evergreen juniper native to North America, known for its reddish, fragrant wood and blue berry-like cones. It thrives in poor, dry soils.

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

Western Red Cedar

Western red cedar is a large, aromatic evergreen conifer of the Pacific Northwest, famed for its rot-resistant, fragrant wood and flat sprays of scale-like foliage. It is a cultural and ecological cornerstone of the region.

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

Post Oak

Post oak is a slow-growing, drought-hardy white oak of the southern and central US, recognized by its cross-shaped leaves. Its rot-resistant wood was traditionally used for fence posts.

tree

Black Locust

Black locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fragrant white spring flowers and extremely hard, rot-resistant wood. A nitrogen-fixing legume, it is valued for timber and erosion control but can be invasive.

tree

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

Bitternut Hickory

Bitternut hickory is a tall, fast-growing eastern North American hickory recognized by its bright sulfur-yellow winter buds. Its dense, strong wood is valued for tool handles and firewood.

tree

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

Red Oak

Northern red oak is a fast-growing, adaptable shade tree with pointed, bristle-tipped leaf lobes and reddish fall color. Its strong wood is a leading commercial hardwood across eastern North America.

tree

Piñon Pine

Piñon Pine is a small, drought-hardy pine of the American Southwest and the state tree of New Mexico. It is a defining species of arid pinyon-juniper woodlands.

tree

Celosia

Celosia produces striking flame-like plumes or brain-like crested heads in vivid colors, holding both fresh and dried for long-lasting display.

flower

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle is a vigorous climbing shrub bearing tubular, intensely fragrant flowers that draw bees, moths and hummingbirds. It's a classic for covering arbors, fences and walls with scent.

shrub

Woolly Senecio

A striking succulent whose cylindrical leaves are wrapped in dense, silvery-white felt, like little woolly cocoons. The bright white woolly coating makes it one of the whitest of all succulents.

succulent

Flowering Tobacco

An ornamental relative of commercial tobacco grown for its tubular, star-shaped flowers that open and release a jasmine-like scent in the evening. It comes in white, green, red and pink, attracting moths and hummingbirds.

flower

Rosemary

An aromatic, woody Mediterranean herb with needle-like evergreen leaves and a piney fragrance, grown as a culinary herb and as a drought-tolerant ornamental shrub.

herb

Thyme

A low, woody Mediterranean herb with tiny aromatic leaves, valued as a drought-tolerant ground cover and a superb bee plant.

herb

Poison Ivy

Poison ivy is a woody native vine or low shrub of North America. Its leaves grow in groups of three, the basis of the saying 'leaves of three, let it be'.

shrub

Yucca

A bold, drought-tolerant plant with rosettes of stiff, sword-shaped leaves atop thick woody canes. A tough, architectural choice for indoors and warm gardens.

shrub

Tree Aeonium

A branching, shrubby succulent that holds glossy leaf rosettes atop bare woody stems. Popular dark cultivars like 'Zwartkop' turn nearly black in strong sun.

succulent

Poison Oak

Poison oak is a woody shrub or climbing vine native to North America, recognized by its compound leaves of three lobed leaflets that resemble oak foliage.

shrub