Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Bamboo Palm
The Bamboo Palm is a clumping indoor palm with slender, cane-like green stems and feathery fronds. It tolerates low light and is a popular choice for adding tropical height.
houseplant
Balsam Fir
A fragrant northern evergreen with flat, soft needles and resin-blistered bark, beloved as a Christmas tree for its classic spire shape and lasting pine scent.
tree
Bearberry
A hardy, mat-forming evergreen groundcover shrub of cold northern regions, with glossy leaves, pink bell flowers, and red berries favored by bears and birds.
shrub
Masterwort
Masterwort is a clump-forming perennial with intricate, pincushion-like flower heads surrounded by a papery collar of petal-like bracts. It brings cottage-garden charm to moist, partly shaded borders.
flower
Wild Geranium
A graceful woodland perennial bearing saucer-shaped pink to lavender flowers above deeply lobed leaves in late spring. It is a true hardy geranium, distinct from the tender garden 'geraniums' that are actually pelargoniums.
flower
Silk Oak
The silk oak is a fast-growing Australian tree with fern-like silvery foliage and showy golden-orange, comb-shaped flowers in spring. It is widely grown for shade, timber and ornament, but can be weedy outside its range.
tree
Shooting Star
A spring-blooming North American wildflower whose swept-back petals and pointed, downward-facing flowers resemble tiny shooting stars or shuttlecocks. It goes dormant by midsummer.
flower
Larkspur
A cool-season annual related to delphinium, bearing tall spikes of spurred blue, purple, pink or white flowers above feathery foliage. It is a cottage-garden classic and an excellent cut flower.
flower
White Spruce
White Spruce is a hardy, widespread conifer of the northern forests of North America, valued for its dense conical form and tolerance of cold and poor soils. It is an important timber and Christmas tree species.
tree
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
Sweet Potato
Sweet potato is a warm-season trailing vine grown as a crop for its swollen storage roots. Unrelated to the common potato, it belongs to the morning glory family and thrives in long, hot summers.
herb
Tulip Tree
One of the tallest eastern hardwoods, named for its showy tulip-shaped greenish-orange flowers and uniquely four-lobed leaves. A fast-growing member of the magnolia family.
tree
Watercress
Watercress is a fast-growing semi-aquatic perennial in the cabbage family, with crisp dark-green leaves on sprawling, rooting stems. It naturally grows in cool, clean flowing water.
herb
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
Wild Columbine
Wild columbine is a graceful native woodland wildflower with nodding red-and-yellow flowers whose backward-pointing spurs hold nectar prized by hummingbirds.
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
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
Solomon's Seal
Solomon's seal is a graceful shade perennial with arching stems lined with paired leaves and dangling white bell flowers. It brings elegant structure to woodland gardens.
flower
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
Rockrose
Rockrose is a tough Mediterranean evergreen shrub prized for its papery, crepe-like flowers and resinous, aromatic foliage. It thrives on neglect in hot, dry, poor soils.
shrub
Quackgrass
Quackgrass is an aggressive cool-season perennial grass that spreads by long, white underground rhizomes, making it one of the most persistent lawn and garden weeds.
grass
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
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