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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Goatsbeard

Goatsbeard is a robust, shade-loving perennial that produces tall, feathery plumes of creamy-white flowers, resembling a giant astilbe. It is a striking native woodland plant for moist, partly shaded gardens.

shrub

Daylily

An exceptionally tough clumping perennial whose trumpet-shaped flowers each last a single day, but bloom in dazzling succession all summer. Available in thousands of cultivars and nearly foolproof to grow.

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Zebra Plant

The zebra plant is a striking Brazilian houseplant prized for glossy dark leaves boldly striped in white and short-lived golden bract spikes. It is notoriously fussy about humidity and watering.

houseplant

Hairy Bittercress

A small annual weed in the mustard family that forms a basal rosette and shoots tiny white flowers in early spring, followed by seed pods that explosively fling seeds. It is a common nuisance in nursery pots and garden beds.

herb

Pink Princess Philodendron

Pink Princess Philodendron is a collector's vining aroid prized for dark green leaves splashed with bubblegum-pink variegation. Each leaf is unique, and bright light is needed to keep the pink coming.

houseplant

Passionflower

Passionflower is a vigorous climbing vine famous for its intricate, fringed purple-and-white blooms. The maypop form (Passiflora incarnata) is hardy in temperate gardens and produces egg-shaped fruits.

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Loropetalum

Loropetalum is an evergreen shrub prized for its spidery, fringe-like flowers and—in popular cultivars—deep burgundy foliage. It blooms heavily in spring with sporadic reflushes through the year.

shrub

Kousa Dogwood

Kousa dogwood is an elegant small tree with pointed white bracts in late spring, raspberry-like fruit, and striking exfoliating bark. It is more disease-resistant than the native flowering dogwood.

tree

Impatiens

Impatiens are shade-loving annuals that smother themselves in flat, colorful flowers all summer, thriving where few other bedding plants will bloom. Their name refers to seed pods that burst open at a touch.

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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.

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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.

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Franklin Tree

The Franklin tree is a rare deciduous tree extinct in the wild, surviving only in cultivation from seed collected in the 1700s. It bears fragrant white camellia-like flowers in late summer and fiery red fall color.

tree

Cyclamen

Cyclamen is a tuberous perennial famous for its swept-back, butterfly-like flowers and heart-shaped, silver-marbled leaves. The florist's cyclamen blooms through the cool months, going dormant in summer heat.

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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.

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Crabapple Tree

A small ornamental tree prized for its profuse spring blossoms and colorful, persistent miniature apples. Flowering crabapples are among the most popular landscape trees in temperate climates.

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Camellia

Camellias are elegant evergreen shrubs with glossy dark foliage and large, rose-like blooms in winter and early spring. Their long flowering season and lush leaves make them prized in shade gardens.

shrub

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

Allium

Ornamental alliums are bulbs grown for their dramatic spherical flower heads on tall, leafless stems. Related to onions and garlic, they add bold architectural interest and are largely pest-proof.

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Weigela

An easy deciduous shrub smothered in trumpet-shaped pink, red or white flowers in late spring that attract hummingbirds and bees. Many cultivars also offer burgundy or variegated foliage for season-long interest.

shrub

Swedish Ivy

Swedish Ivy is a fast-growing trailing houseplant with glossy, scalloped leaves, prized for hanging baskets despite being neither Swedish nor a true ivy. It roots easily from cuttings and tolerates a wide range of conditions.

houseplant

Pothos

Pothos is a trailing tropical vine with glossy, heart-shaped leaves, famous for being almost impossible to kill. It thrives in a huge range of light conditions and roots easily from cuttings, making it a top choice for beginners.

houseplant

Dracaena

A large genus of architectural foliage plants with strappy, often colorfully striped leaves on cane-like stems. Tough and drought-tolerant, dracaenas are reliable beginner houseplants that bring height and structure indoors.

houseplant

Bradford Pear

Bradford pear is a fast-growing ornamental cultivar of Callery pear known for a uniform teardrop shape and clouds of white spring flowers. It is now widely regarded as an invasive species with notoriously weak, breakage-prone branching.

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Medlar Tree

The medlar is an ancient, gnarled deciduous tree in the rose family, grown for its large white spring flowers, twisted branches, and distinctive russet-brown fruit with a wide open calyx. Hardy and low-maintenance.

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