Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Paper Birch
Paper birch is a northern tree famous for its peeling, chalky-white bark used historically for canoes and writing. It brings bright bark and golden fall color to cool, moist landscapes.
tree
Peanut Cactus
A small clustering cactus with finger-like, peanut-sized stems that sprawls into a mat and produces vivid orange-red flowers. It is an easy, free-flowering favorite for sunny spots.
succulent
Norway Spruce
Norway spruce is a fast-growing European evergreen conifer with drooping branchlets and the longest cones of any spruce; it is widely used for timber, windbreaks, and as a Christmas tree.
tree
Pear Tree
The pear tree is a deciduous fruit tree grown for its abundant white spring blossom and glossy foliage. European pears (Pyrus communis) are long-lived ornamental and orchard trees.
tree
Moon Cactus
The moon cactus is a brightly colored grafted novelty cactus, with a red, yellow, orange, or pink top fused onto a green rootstock. The colorful top lacks chlorophyll and depends on the host cactus to survive.
succulent
Peperomia Raindrop
Peperomia Raindrop has glossy, heart-to-teardrop-shaped leaves that resemble large green raindrops. Compact and semi-succulent, it's an easy and attractive choice for desks and shelves.
houseplant
Okra
Okra is a heat-loving annual in the mallow family, grown in warm-climate gardens for its showy hibiscus-like flowers and slender, ridged green seed pods. It thrives in hot summers.
herb
Mexican Sunflower
A tall, fast-growing annual prized for its vivid orange-red daisy flowers that are magnets for butterflies and bees. It thrives in heat and poor soil where many other plants struggle.
flower
Lupin
Lupin is a striking perennial bearing tall, dense spikes of pea-like flowers in vivid colors above palmate leaves. A legume, it fixes nitrogen and is a cottage-garden showstopper.
flower
Marshmallow
Marshmallow is a soft, downy wetland perennial in the mallow family, with velvety gray-green foliage and pale pink to white flowers. It grows in damp meadows and along riverbanks.
herb
Loquat Tree
An evergreen subtropical fruit tree bearing clusters of orange fruit in late winter and spring. Ornamental and easy to grow, it offers lush foliage and unusually timed blossoms.
tree
Lobelia
Edging lobelia is a low, mounding or trailing annual smothered in tiny, intensely blue flowers from spring to frost. It's a staple of hanging baskets, window boxes and bedding borders.
flower
Japanese Cedar
Japanese Cedar, or sugi, is a tall, fast-growing evergreen conifer native to Japan and the national tree of that country. It has soft, awl-shaped needles and reddish, fibrous, peeling bark.
tree
Japanese Maple
A small, elegant ornamental tree prized for delicate, deeply lobed leaves in shades of red, green and purple, and spectacular fall color. A centerpiece of Japanese gardens.
tree
Johnsongrass
Johnsongrass is a tall, aggressive perennial grass spread by both seed and creeping rhizomes; it is a major agricultural weed that is very difficult to eradicate.
grass
Kudzu
Kudzu is a fast-growing climbing vine infamous for smothering trees, buildings, and landscapes across the southeastern United States at remarkable speed.
shrub
Kerria
Kerria is a graceful deciduous shrub in the rose family, grown for its arching green stems and cheerful golden-yellow spring flowers. It is one of the few flowering shrubs that blooms well in shade.
shrub
Indian Pipe
A ghostly white, leafless woodland plant that lacks chlorophyll and survives by parasitizing fungi, appearing as eerie translucent stems on the forest floor.
flower
Hydrangea
A leafy garden shrub famous for big rounded clusters of summer flowers that can shift between blue and pink depending on soil pH. Hydrangeas are showy, thirsty, and shade-tolerant.
shrub
Hellebore
An evergreen shade perennial that blooms in late winter and early spring, when little else does, with nodding, cup-shaped flowers in white, pink, plum, and green. Long-lived and deer-resistant.
flower
Great Blue Lobelia
A native North American perennial producing tall spikes of vivid blue, two-lipped flowers in late summer. It is the blue counterpart to the red cardinal flower and loves moist ground.
flower
Goji Berry
A hardy, sprawling deciduous shrub in the nightshade family grown for its bright red-orange berries. It tolerates poor soils and drought and bears long, arching, thorny canes.
shrub
Globe Thistle
Globe thistle is a bold, architectural perennial topped with spherical, steel-blue flower heads above spiny, gray-green foliage. It is drought-tolerant and irresistible to bees.
flower
Dog Fennel
Dog fennel is a tall, feathery-leaved native weed of the southeastern United States that forms dense stands in old fields and roadsides and has an aromatic, somewhat unpleasant scent.
herb