Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Lantana
Lantana is a tough, heat- and drought-tolerant flowering shrub whose rounded clusters of tiny blooms often shift color as they age. It is a magnet for butterflies but is invasive in many warm regions.
shrub
Horseweed
Horseweed is a tall, weedy native annual with a single bristly stalk topped by clouds of tiny flowers; it is a prolific seeder and one of the first weeds to evolve widespread herbicide resistance.
herb
Japanese Black Pine
Japanese Black Pine is a rugged coastal conifer with dark bark, stiff needles, and a picturesque irregular form. It is a classic bonsai and ornamental tree highly tolerant of salt and wind.
tree
Japanese Aucuba
Japanese aucuba is a shade-loving evergreen shrub with bold, glossy leaves, often speckled gold, earning it the name gold dust plant. It brings light and color to dark, difficult corners.
shrub
Jade Plant
The jade plant is a long-lived succulent with thick, glossy, oval leaves and woody stems that give it a miniature tree appearance. It is easy to grow, drought-tolerant, and often kept as a symbol of good luck.
succulent
Heucherella
Heucherella, or foamy bells, is a colorful hybrid perennial combining the bold foliage of coral bells with the airy flower sprays of foamflower. It offers striking leaves in many colors plus dainty spring blooms.
flower
Geum
Geum, or avens, is a clump-forming perennial with airy stems of cheerful red, orange, or yellow flowers above hairy basal foliage. It blooms from late spring into summer in cottage borders.
flower
Golden Shower Tree
The golden shower tree is a tropical flowering tree that drapes itself in long, hanging chains of brilliant golden-yellow blossoms in summer. It is the national tree and flower of Thailand and a beloved ornamental across the tropics.
tree
Fireweed
A tall, magenta-flowered perennial famous for blanketing burned and disturbed land, which gives it its name. Its spires of pink-purple flowers make it both a pioneer species and a showy garden plant.
flower
Dragon Blood Tree
The dragon blood tree is a strange, umbrella-shaped tree endemic to Yemen's Socotra Island, named for the deep-red resin it exudes. Its dense canopy of upturned branches resembles an inside-out umbrella.
tree
Coral Bells
A versatile mounding perennial grown chiefly for vivid foliage in shades of purple, amber, lime, and silver, accented by airy sprays of tiny bell-shaped flowers. A modern shade-garden favorite.
flower
Chaste Tree
The chaste tree is a Mediterranean deciduous shrub or small tree with aromatic, palmate foliage and slender spikes of lavender-blue summer flowers that attract bees and butterflies.
shrub
Barrenwort
Barrenwort is a tough, low groundcover for dry shade, with delicate spring flowers and heart-shaped leaves that often emerge and finish the season tinted red. It thrives where little else will.
flower
Buckhorn Plantain
A common perennial lawn and field weed with a basal rosette of narrow, ribbed leaves and bullet-shaped flower heads on tall leafless stalks. It is widespread and persistent in lawns, pastures and roadsides.
herb
Blue Glow Agave
A compact hybrid agave forming a tidy rosette of blue-green leaves edged with a glowing red-and-yellow margin that lights up when backlit by sun. It is a refined, slow-growing landscape gem.
succulent
Sweet Corn
Sweet corn is a tender annual grass and a variety of maize grown as a warm-season garden crop. It forms a tall, single stalk topped by a feathery tassel, with husk-wrapped ears lower down.
grass
Virginia Bluebells
A beloved spring ephemeral whose pink buds open into clusters of nodding, sky-blue trumpet flowers. It blooms in woodland shade then dies back by summer, vanishing until the next spring.
flower
St. John's Wort
St. John's wort is a hardy yellow-flowered perennial with masses of five-petaled summer blooms. Tough and drought-tolerant, it is also a noxious weed in many grazing regions.
herb
Southern Live Oak
Southern Live Oak is a massive, spreading evergreen oak of the American Deep South, famous for its broad canopy draped in Spanish moss. It is among the longest-lived and most iconic trees of the region.
tree
Smokebush
A deciduous shrub famous for the airy, smoke-like haze of fluffy flower stalks that envelop the plant in summer. Many cultivars add dramatic purple or gold foliage and fiery fall color.
shrub
Skullcap
Skullcap is a slender North American mint-family herb with tiny blue, two-lipped flowers. It takes its name from the small helmet- or skull-cap-shaped appendage on the calyx of each bloom.
herb
Spider Plant
The spider plant is a fast-growing, easy-care houseplant with arching variegated leaves and dangling baby plantlets called 'spiderettes.' It is adaptable and one of the best plants for beginners.
houseplant
Russian Sage
An airy, silver-stemmed subshrub topped with hazy clouds of tiny lavender-blue flowers all summer. Aromatic, heat- and drought-proof, and a favorite of bees in hot, sunny gardens.
shrub
Prostrate Spurge
A fast-growing summer annual that forms flat, ground-hugging mats with small oval leaves often marked by a maroon spot. It exudes a milky sap and is a widespread weed of lawns, cracks and gardens.
herb