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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Silver Fir

Silver Fir is a tall European forest conifer with flat, glossy needles bearing two silvery bands beneath. It was the original Christmas tree of central Europe and is an important timber species.

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Mulberry Tree

A fast-growing deciduous tree producing abundant blackberry-like fruit. White mulberry is also famous as the sole food of silkworms.

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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.

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Sorrel

Sorrel is a leafy perennial herb in the dock family, grown in herb and vegetable gardens for its bright green, arrow-shaped leaves. It grows from a deep taproot and is among the earliest greens to emerge in spring.

herb

Spanish Fir

Spanish Fir is a rare Mediterranean conifer from the mountains of southern Spain, prized for its dense, radially arranged blue-green needles that give branches a bottlebrush look. It is one of the few firs adapted to hot, dry summers.

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Noble Fir

Noble Fir is a stately Pacific Northwest conifer with blue-green upswept needles and large upright cones. It is one of the most popular and long-lasting Christmas trees.

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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.

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Korean Fir

Korean Fir is a compact, slow-growing conifer famous for producing showy violet-blue upright cones even on young trees. Its short needles show silvery undersides, making it a favorite garden and dwarf-conifer specimen.

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Fraser Fir

A high-elevation Appalachian evergreen and a favorite premium Christmas tree, with fragrant, silvery-backed needles and excellent needle retention.

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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

Bugleweed

Bugleweed is a low, fast-spreading evergreen groundcover prized for its glossy rosettes and spikes of blue-violet flowers in spring. It quickly carpets bare ground in sun or shade.

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Wild Garlic

A pungent perennial bulb in the onion family that spreads aggressively through lawns and fields, recognized by its hollow, grass-like leaves and strong garlic odor. It is a common turf weed.

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Clarkia

A graceful western North American annual bearing satiny, cup-shaped flowers in pink, lavender, and salmon, beloved for cool-season color and as a cut flower.

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Ornamental Pepper

A compact form of the common pepper grown for showy, upward-facing fruits that ripen through purple, cream, yellow, orange and red, often all at once. Popular as a fall and holiday houseplant or patio accent.

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Flowering Tobacco

An ornamental relative of commercial tobacco grown for its tubular, star-shaped flowers that open and release a jasmine-like scent in the evening. It comes in white, green, red and pink, attracting moths and hummingbirds.

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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

Silver Maple

Silver maple is a fast-growing deciduous tree named for the silvery undersides of its deeply cut leaves, which flash in the wind; it is hardy and adaptable but has brittle wood prone to storm damage.

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Sausage Tree

The sausage tree is an African tree famous for its enormous, heavy, sausage-shaped fruits dangling on long stalks, and its dark maroon, bat-pollinated flowers. It is a striking specimen of savanna and riverbank landscapes.

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Celery

Celery is a marsh-loving biennial grown for its long, ribbed leaf stalks. It is famously demanding, needing rich soil and constant moisture to grow well.

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Buttercup

Buttercups are cheerful wildflowers with glossy, cup-shaped yellow blooms that seem to glow in spring meadows.

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Summersweet

A late-summer-blooming deciduous shrub with upright spikes of intensely fragrant white or pink flowers that draw bees and butterflies. Native to eastern North America, it thrives in moist, shady spots.

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Corn Speedwell

Corn speedwell is a tiny low-growing winter annual weed with small, deep-blue flowers and rounded toothed leaves. It commonly carpets lawns, gardens, and bare ground in late winter and spring.

herb

Chaste Tree

The chaste tree is a Mediterranean deciduous shrub or small tree with aromatic, palmate foliage and slender spikes of lavender-blue summer flowers that attract bees and butterflies.

shrub

Wild Indigo

A long-lived native prairie perennial that forms a shrub-like mound of blue-green foliage topped by spikes of indigo-blue, pea-like flowers. Its deep taproot makes it exceptionally drought tolerant and nearly permanent in the garden.

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