Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Feather Cactus
A clustering cactus completely cloaked in soft, feathery white spines that look and feel like down. The fluffy coating hides the body and gives it a snowball appearance.
succulent
Elderberry
Elderberry is a fast-growing deciduous shrub bearing large creamy flower clusters in early summer and drooping bunches of small dark purple-black berries in late summer.
shrub
English Daisy
The English daisy is a low, cheerful perennial with white-to-pink petaled flowers around a yellow center, beloved in cottage gardens and famous as the daisy of lawns and daisy-chains.
flower
Diascia
Diascia, or twinspur, is a low, free-flowering plant covered in delicate coral, pink, or apricot blooms. It is a popular cool-season filler for containers, baskets, and edging.
flower
Deodar Cedar
Deodar Cedar is a graceful true cedar with gently drooping branches and soft blue-green needles. It is a popular large ornamental tree with an elegant, weeping silhouette.
tree
Cholla Cactus
A group of shrubby to treelike desert cacti with cylindrical, jointed segments and barbed spines that detach easily. Iconic plants of the American Southwest deserts.
succulent
Burdock
A large biennial famous for its bur-covered seed heads that cling to fur and clothing, the inspiration for Velcro. It has enormous rhubarb-like leaves and a thick, deep taproot.
herb
Castor Bean
Castor bean is a fast-growing, dramatic plant with huge tropical leaves and spiny seed pods, often used as a bold ornamental for an instant tropical effect in gardens.
shrub
Christmas Cactus
The Christmas cactus is a Brazilian forest cactus that bursts into tubular pink, red, or white blooms in early winter. Unlike desert cacti, it likes humidity and regular water.
succulent
Cedar of Lebanon
Cedar of Lebanon is a majestic, long-lived true cedar famous for the broad, flat tiers of foliage it develops with age. It is an iconic specimen tree steeped in history and symbolism.
tree
Catmint
A soft, billowing perennial with gray-green aromatic foliage and a long haze of small lavender-blue flowers. Tough, drought-proof, deer-resistant, and a magnet for bees.
herb
Calamondin
Calamondin is a small ornamental citrus hybrid bearing abundant tiny orange fruit. Popular as a potted houseplant, it flowers and fruits nearly year-round.
tree
Burning Bush
A deciduous shrub famous for its fiery crimson-red fall foliage and distinctive corky 'wings' along the stems. Tough and adaptable, it is also invasive in parts of North America.
shrub
Butterfly Weed
Butterfly weed is a native milkweed bearing flat clusters of brilliant orange flowers in summer. It is a top nectar plant for butterflies and a larval host for monarchs.
flower
Blanket Flower
A heat-loving, daisy-like perennial in fiery bands of red, orange, and yellow that bloom nonstop all summer. Tough, drought-proof, and beloved by bees and butterflies.
flower
Astragalus
A hardy perennial legume native to northern China and nearby regions, grown for its long, fibrous taproot. It is drought-tolerant and thrives in well-drained soils.
herb
Black Oak
Black oak is a large red-oak-group tree of eastern North America with dark, blocky bark and bristle-tipped lobed leaves. Its inner bark once yielded the yellow dye quercitron.
tree
Beet
Beet is a cool-season root vegetable grown for its rounded, swollen root and its leafy greens. The familiar deep-red root is the most common, but golden, white, and striped types also exist.
herb
Bald Cypress
A deciduous conifer of southern swamps, famous for its feathery foliage, buttressed trunk, and 'knees' that poke up from the water. Drops its needles in fall, hence 'bald.'
tree
Barberry
A dense, thorny deciduous shrub grown for colorful red, gold, or purple foliage and bright red berries. Tough and adaptable, though invasive in parts of North America.
shrub
Alyssum
Sweet alyssum is a low, spreading annual smothered in tiny honey-scented flowers, prized as a fast, fragrant carpet for borders, containers and hanging baskets.
flower
Banana Plant
The banana is a giant tropical herb, not a true tree, grown for its fruit and dramatic paddle-shaped leaves. Its 'trunk' is actually a pseudostem of tightly rolled leaf sheaths.
herb
American Beech
A majestic, slow-growing native hardwood with smooth silvery-gray bark and golden fall leaves that often cling through winter. A dominant tree of eastern forests.
tree
Angelonia
Often called summer snapdragon, angelonia produces upright spikes of orchid-like flowers that thrive in heat and humidity all season without deadheading.
flower