Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Lovage
Lovage is a tall, robust perennial herb with bold, celery-scented foliage and an architectural form. Long-lived, a single plant makes a striking back-of-border specimen.
herb
Lucky Bamboo
Despite the name, lucky bamboo is not a bamboo but a Dracaena, often grown in water and trained into curls or stalks. It is a popular feng shui gift symbolizing good fortune.
houseplant
Japanese Aucuba
Japanese aucuba is a shade-loving evergreen shrub with bold, glossy leaves, often speckled gold, earning it the name gold dust plant. It brings light and color to dark, difficult corners.
shrub
False Shamrock
A bulbous plant with deep purple, triangular three-part leaves that fold up at night like butterfly wings. Easy to grow, it also produces dainty pale pink or white flowers.
houseplant
Dwarf Umbrella Tree
The Dwarf Umbrella Tree has glossy leaflets arranged like the spokes of an umbrella radiating from each stem. It is a popular, fast-growing indoor plant and a favorite subject for bonsai.
houseplant
Castor Bean
Castor bean is a fast-growing, dramatic plant with huge tropical leaves and spiny seed pods, often used as a bold ornamental for an instant tropical effect in gardens.
shrub
Lifesaver Cactus
A low, clumping stem succulent famous for bizarre flowers with a thick, glossy red ring at the center that looks exactly like a candy lifesaver. The flowers are striped like a zebra.
succulent
Devils Ivy
Devil's ivy, or golden pothos, is one of the world's most popular and indestructible houseplants, a fast-growing tropical vine with glossy, heart-shaped leaves marbled in gold.
houseplant
Candelabra Cactus
A tall, tree-like succulent euphorbia with upright branching ridged stems that form a candelabra silhouette. Though cactus-like, it is a spurge that exudes milky latex.
succulent
Flapjack Succulent
A striking succulent with large, flat, paddle-shaped leaves that flush vivid red along their edges in bright sun and cool weather. It forms rosettes that resemble a stack of pancakes, giving it the name flapjack.
succulent
Devil's Backbone
A shrubby succulent euphorbia famous for its distinctive zigzagging stems and small red-bracted flowers shaped like tiny birds. Often grown indoors for its sculptural, jointed form.
succulent
Buckhorn Plantain
A common perennial lawn and field weed with a basal rosette of narrow, ribbed leaves and bullet-shaped flower heads on tall leafless stalks. It is widespread and persistent in lawns, pastures and roadsides.
herb
Watch Chain
A quirky succulent with thin stems densely packed with tiny overlapping triangular leaves, creating a braided, chain-like texture. It forms low bushy clumps and is very easy to grow.
succulent
Rubber Tree
The rubber tree is a striking indoor tree with large, thick, glossy leaves that can be deep green or burgundy. It is easy to grow and can become an impressive floor plant several feet tall.
tree
Prickly Lettuce
Prickly lettuce is a tall annual or biennial weed and the closest wild relative of cultivated lettuce. It is recognized by spiny leaf midribs, milky sap, and leaves that twist to align vertically like a compass.
herb
Alocasia Polly
Alocasia Polly is a compact hybrid houseplant with dramatic dark green, arrow-shaped leaves edged in wavy margins and boldly veined in silvery-white. It is striking but somewhat fussy, demanding warmth and humidity.
houseplant
Broadleaf Plantain
Broadleaf plantain is a tough, low-growing perennial weed with a rosette of broad, ribbed leaves and slender flower spikes, found in lawns, paths and compacted ground worldwide. It is unrelated to the banana-like plantain fruit despite the shared name.
herb
Flamingo Flower
A tropical plant famous for its glossy, heart-shaped red 'flowers' (actually spathes) with a protruding spadix. Long-lasting blooms make it a popular gift plant.
flower
Thyme
A low, woody Mediterranean herb with tiny aromatic leaves, valued as a drought-tolerant ground cover and a superb bee plant.
herb
Papaya Tree
A fast-growing tropical plant with a single trunk topped by a crown of large lobed leaves and clusters of melon-like fruit. It can fruit within a year of planting.
tree
Swamp Milkweed
A moisture-loving native milkweed bearing fragrant clusters of pink flowers, a vital host plant for monarch butterflies and a magnet for pollinators.
flower
Lima Bean
Lima beans are a warm-season legume in the pea family, available in bush and pole forms. They are a heat-loving plant native to the Americas.
herb
Cardamom
Cardamom is a tropical, shade-loving relative of ginger grown for its aromatic seed pods. A spice plant, it needs warmth, humidity and patience.
herb
Dusty Miller
Grown for its felted, silvery-white foliage rather than flowers, dusty miller is a versatile foil plant that tolerates heat, drought, and salt.
flower