Plant Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.

all houseplant flower tree shrub succulent herb fern grass

Lavender

An aromatic Mediterranean shrub-herb grown for its fragrant purple flower spikes and silvery foliage. Lavender thrives on sun, lean soil, and minimal water.

herb

Marble Queen Pothos

Marble Queen is a heavily variegated pothos cultivar with heart-shaped leaves marbled in creamy white and green. It is easy to grow but slower than golden pothos due to its high variegation.

houseplant

Mock Orange

A deciduous shrub grown for its profuse, intensely fragrant white late-spring flowers that smell like orange blossom. Easy and hardy, it is a nostalgic favorite of cottage gardens.

shrub

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.

tree

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.

flower

Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a small ornamental tree beloved for its spring display of showy white or pink bracts. Native to eastern North America, it offers four-season interest with berries and red fall foliage.

tree

Creeping Charlie

Creeping Charlie is a low, aromatic perennial in the mint family that spreads aggressively by creeping stems to form dense mats in lawns and shady gardens. Its scalloped, round leaves and small blue-violet flowers make it easy to recognize and notoriously hard to eradicate.

herb

Kwanzan Cherry

A flowering cherry prized for its showy, fully double, deep-pink pompom blossoms in mid-spring. Its upright vase shape and dense blooms make it a popular street and lawn tree.

tree

Yoshino Cherry

An ornamental cherry famous for clouds of pale pink-to-white blossoms in early spring. It is the iconic tree of Washington, D.C.'s Tidal Basin and Japan's cherry-blossom season.

tree

Bitternut Hickory

Bitternut hickory is a tall, fast-growing eastern North American hickory recognized by its bright sulfur-yellow winter buds. Its dense, strong wood is valued for tool handles and firewood.

tree

Red Spruce

Red Spruce is a cool-climate eastern conifer of high Appalachian and northeastern forests, known for its reddish bark and resonant tonewood.

tree

Angel Wing Begonia

A cane-stemmed begonia with asymmetrical, wing-shaped leaves often spotted silver and flushed red underneath, topped by dangling clusters of flowers. It is a free-flowering, upright houseplant.

houseplant

Black Locust

Black locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fragrant white spring flowers and extremely hard, rot-resistant wood. A nitrogen-fixing legume, it is valued for timber and erosion control but can be invasive.

tree

Areca Palm

A clumping feather palm with feathery, arching fronds and golden-yellow stems. One of the most popular indoor palms.

tree

Ponderosa Pine

Ponderosa pine is a tall, drought-hardy evergreen conifer of western North America, known for its long needles, large cones and puzzle-piece bark that smells of vanilla or butterscotch. It is a major western timber tree.

tree

Longleaf Pine

A stately fire-adapted pine that once dominated vast southeastern U.S. forests, prized for its very long needles, durable timber and grass-stage seedlings. Restoration of its open, biodiverse savannas is a major conservation effort.

tree

Peperomia Rosso

A compact peperomia cultivar with deeply textured, dark green leaves that flash a deep red-burgundy underside. Small, slow-growing, and easy, it thrives on benign neglect.

houseplant

Foxtail

Foxtail is a group of annual grasses named for their bushy, bristly seed heads that resemble a fox's tail. They are common weeds of lawns, fields and roadsides.

grass

Tulip Tree

One of the tallest eastern hardwoods, named for its showy tulip-shaped greenish-orange flowers and uniquely four-lobed leaves. A fast-growing member of the magnolia family.

tree

Black Medic

Black medic is a low, clover-like legume weed with small yellow flower clusters and distinctive coiled black seed pods, common in lawns and disturbed 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

Curly Dock

Curly dock is a hardy perennial weed with long, wavy-edged leaves and tall rusty-brown seed stalks. Its deep taproot makes it persistent and difficult to remove.

herb

Crown of Thorns

A spiny succulent shrub from Madagascar prized for its near year-round display of small, brightly colored bracts surrounding tiny flowers. Tough and drought-tolerant, with thorn-armored stems and milky sap.

succulent

Wood Sorrel

Wood sorrel is a clover-like herb with heart-shaped trifoliate leaves and small flowers, common as a garden and lawn weed.

herb