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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Paper Bark Birch

A graceful northern tree famous for its peeling, papery white bark and fluttering golden fall foliage. Its bark was traditionally used by Indigenous peoples to build canoes.

tree

Mugo Pine

Mugo Pine is a compact, shrubby evergreen conifer prized for its dense mounding form. It is a popular low-maintenance choice for rock gardens, borders, and containers.

shrub

Milk Thistle

Milk thistle is a striking, spiny thistle with glossy white-marbled leaves and large purple flower heads. Robust and self-seeding, it can become a weed in warm climates.

herb

Meadowsweet

Meadowsweet is a graceful wetland perennial topped with frothy, almond-scented cream flowers carried in branched plumes above pinnate foliage.

herb

Loganberry

A blackberry-raspberry hybrid bramble producing long, deep-red berries on vigorous trailing canes. Reliable and hardy, it is a classic garden cane fruit.

shrub

Lavender

An aromatic Mediterranean shrub-herb grown for its fragrant purple flower spikes and silvery foliage. Lavender thrives on sun, lean soil, and minimal water.

herb

Lemon Cypress

Lemon Cypress is a bright chartreuse-yellow cultivar of Monterey Cypress whose foliage smells of lemon when brushed. It is popular as a potted topiary and small landscape conifer.

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

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.

tree

Italian Cypress

Italian Cypress is a tall, narrow columnar conifer iconic of Mediterranean landscapes. Its slender pillar form makes it a dramatic vertical accent in gardens.

tree

Kentia Palm

The kentia palm is an elegant, slow-growing feather palm from Australia's Lord Howe Island, famed since Victorian times as one of the most durable and graceful indoor palms.

houseplant

Harebell

A delicate, wiry perennial bearing nodding blue bell-shaped flowers on thread-like stems. Found across the Northern Hemisphere, it is famed as the bluebell of Scotland.

flower

Henbane

Henbane is a foul-smelling, sticky-haired herb of the nightshade family with funnel-shaped, purple-veined flowers, long associated with witchcraft and folklore.

herb

Fennel

Fennel is an aromatic, feathery herb grown in gardens for its finely divided foliage and airy yellow flower heads; the Florence type forms a swollen bulb at the base of the leaves.

herb

English Oak

English oak is the iconic, long-lived oak of Europe, with short-stalked lobed leaves and acorns on long stalks. A symbol of strength, it can live for centuries and supports vast biodiversity.

tree

Dewberry

Dewberry is a low, trailing relative of the blackberry that produces dark berries earlier in the season. Its sprawling thorny canes form ground-hugging mats.

shrub

Eastern White Pine

A tall, fast-growing native conifer with soft blue-green needles in bundles of five and long, slender cones. The largest conifer of the northeastern forests and a historic timber tree.

tree

Colorado Blue Spruce

A striking conifer prized for its stiff, sharp, silvery-blue needles and tidy pyramidal form. Native to the Rocky Mountains and a popular ornamental and Christmas tree.

tree

Collard Greens

Collard greens are a hardy, non-heading form of cabbage grown for their large, broad blue-green leaves. A leafy garden vegetable, they are cold-tolerant and productive over a long season.

herb

Clementine Tree

A small, virtually seedless mandarin with glossy deep-orange skin that peels easily. It is a popular winter citrus borne on a compact, attractive evergreen tree.

tree

Celandine Poppy

A spring-blooming woodland wildflower of eastern North America bearing bright golden-yellow poppy flowers above deeply lobed blue-green leaves.

flower

Blue Flame Cactus

A fast-growing, heavily branching columnar cactus with powdery blue-green ribbed stems. Its many upright arms cluster like dancing flames, hence the name.

succulent

Blazing Star

A native prairie perennial sending up tall spikes of fluffy purple flowers that open from the top down. A magnet for butterflies, it is a favorite of pollinator gardens.

flower

Bouncing Bet

A vigorous old-fashioned perennial with clusters of fragrant pink flowers whose roots and leaves lather like soap, long used as a natural cleanser for textiles.

herb