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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Philodendron Birkin

Philodendron Birkin is a compact, self-heading houseplant with glossy dark green leaves finely striped in creamy white. A stable spontaneous mutation, it is easy to grow and ideal for tabletops.

houseplant

Monterey Cypress

Monterey Cypress is a wind-sculpted evergreen conifer native to a tiny stretch of the California coast, famous for the gnarled trees of the Monterey Peninsula. It is widely planted for hedging and shelter in mild climates.

tree

Juniper

A tough, evergreen coniferous shrub (some species small trees) with needle-like or scale-like foliage and blue berry-like cones. Junipers range from low groundcovers to upright forms and thrive in poor, dry soils.

shrub

Gray Pine

A sparse, open-crowned California pine known for its ghostly gray-green foliage and enormous, heavy cones with large seeds. It is endemic to the dry foothills surrounding California's Central Valley.

tree

Green Ash

Green ash is a tough, adaptable deciduous tree once widely planted for shade, with compound leaves and yellow fall color; its survival is now threatened across North America by the emerald ash borer.

tree

Fig Tree

The common fig is a deciduous Mediterranean tree grown for its large lobed leaves and distinctive fruiting form. Easy to grow and forgiving, it is one of the oldest cultivated trees and thrives in warm gardens and containers.

tree

Elephant Bush

Elephant bush is a fast-growing South African succulent shrub with small round jade-green leaves on reddish stems, popular as a houseplant, bonsai subject, and carbon-storing landscape plant.

succulent

Douglas Fir

Douglas fir is a towering western North American conifer prized as a timber and Christmas tree, recognizable by its soft flat needles and distinctive three-pointed bracts protruding from the cones.

tree

Boysenberry

A trailing bramble hybrid created by crossing blackberry, raspberry, dewberry and loganberry. It produces large, deep maroon aggregate berries and is famously associated with Knott's Berry Farm.

shrub

Boneset

Boneset is a native North American wildflower with clusters of fuzzy white blooms and distinctive leaves that appear pierced by the stem. It is valued as a pollinator plant for moist gardens.

herb

Blackberry

Blackberries are vigorous, often thorny cane plants in the rose family, bearing glossy black aggregate berries in late summer. Famously tough, they grow wild as brambles and in many improved garden varieties.

shrub

Bell Pepper

Bell pepper is a blocky-fruited variety of Capsicum annuum grown as a warm-season garden crop, bearing glossy fruit in shades of green, red, yellow, and orange. It is a colorful, productive plant for sunny beds and containers.

herb

Bermuda Grass

Bermuda grass is a tough, sun-loving warm-season turfgrass prized for lawns and sports fields in warm climates, but notorious as an aggressive weed elsewhere. It spreads rapidly by both stolons and rhizomes.

grass

Anthurium Warocqueanum

Known as the Queen Anthurium, this collector's aroid grows enormous, elongated velvety leaves with bold silvery-white veins. It is prized but demanding, needing high humidity and airy media.

houseplant

Sassafras

An aromatic native tree known for its three differently shaped leaves on the same plant, spicy fragrance, and brilliant fall color.

tree

Sage

Sage is a hardy Mediterranean shrub-herb with soft, gray-green aromatic leaves, widely grown as a culinary herb and ornamental in sunny gardens.

herb

Peppermint

Peppermint is a vigorous aromatic perennial herb grown in gardens, a natural hybrid of water mint and spearmint with a strong menthol scent.

herb

Piñon Pine

Piñon Pine is a small, drought-hardy pine of the American Southwest and the state tree of New Mexico. It is a defining species of arid pinyon-juniper woodlands.

tree

Pea

The garden pea is a cool-season climbing legume grown for its seeds and pods. It is one of the earliest crops to sow in spring and fixes nitrogen to enrich the soil.

herb

Persimmon Tree

A deciduous fruit tree grown for its glossy orange fruit that ripens in autumn and clings to bare branches like ornaments, and for its vivid fall foliage.

tree

Norway Maple

A dense, fast-growing European shade tree with broad five-lobed leaves and milky sap, widely planted but invasive in much of North America.

tree

Marjoram

Marjoram is a tender, aromatic Mediterranean herb closely related to oregano, grown as a culinary herb in gardens, pots, and on windowsills.

herb

Ladyfinger Cactus

A clustering cactus of slender, finger-like stems covered in neat, star-like spine clusters. One of the easiest and most rewarding small cacti for beginners.

succulent

Jostaberry

Jostaberry is a thornless hybrid of blackcurrant and gooseberry, producing dark berries. It is vigorous, hardy, and disease-resistant.

shrub