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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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

Christmas Cactus

The Christmas cactus is a Brazilian forest cactus that bursts into tubular pink, red, or white blooms in early winter. Unlike desert cacti, it likes humidity and regular water.

succulent

Yellow Trumpet Tree

The yellow trumpet tree erupts in brilliant golden-yellow trumpet flowers in spring, usually while leafless, making it one of the most dazzling tropical flowering trees. It is the national tree of Brazil.

tree

White Ash

A large native shade tree once widely planted for its strong wood and purple-bronze fall color. Now severely threatened by the invasive emerald ash borer.

tree

Incense Cedar

Incense Cedar is a stately western conifer with fragrant, flat sprays of foliage and cinnamon-red fibrous bark, famous as the wood used for pencils.

tree

Staghorn Fern

The staghorn fern is a dramatic epiphytic fern whose fertile fronds branch like antlers. It grows mounted on wood or in baskets rather than in ordinary soil.

fern

Live Oak

Live oak is a massive, sprawling evergreen oak of the American South, famous for wide spreading limbs draped in Spanish moss and an extremely strong, dense wood.

tree

Sitka Spruce

Sitka Spruce is the largest spruce in the world, a towering conifer of the cool, wet Pacific Northwest coast. Its strong, lightweight wood is prized for aircraft, boats, and musical instruments.

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Butternut

Butternut is a medium-sized North American walnut relative with elongated, sticky nuts and a pale, lightweight wood. Wild populations have been devastated by butternut canker disease.

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Basswood

Basswood, or American linden, is a large deciduous shade tree with big heart-shaped leaves and fragrant summer flowers beloved by bees. Its soft, pale wood is a favorite of woodcarvers.

tree

Engelmann Spruce

Engelmann Spruce is a tall, narrow conifer of high western mountains, often forming dense subalpine forests near treeline. Its soft, resonant wood is prized for musical instrument soundboards.

tree

Pignut Hickory

Pignut hickory is a tall, upland hickory of eastern North America with smooth gray bark and pear-shaped nuts. It is valued for tough wood, brilliant golden fall color, and as wildlife habitat.

tree

Eastern Red Cedar

Eastern Red Cedar is a tough, aromatic evergreen juniper native to North America, known for its reddish, fragrant wood and blue berry-like cones. It thrives in poor, dry soils.

tree

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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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.

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Western Red Cedar

Western red cedar is a large, aromatic evergreen conifer of the Pacific Northwest, famed for its rot-resistant, fragrant wood and flat sprays of scale-like foliage. It is a cultural and ecological cornerstone of the region.

tree

Sugar Maple

Sugar maple is a hallmark of North America's blazing autumn forests and the maple traditionally tapped for its sap. It is a large, long-lived shade tree with dense, hard wood prized for furniture and flooring.

tree

Post Oak

Post oak is a slow-growing, drought-hardy white oak of the southern and central US, recognized by its cross-shaped leaves. Its rot-resistant wood was traditionally used for fence posts.

tree

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.

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Red Oak

Northern red oak is a fast-growing, adaptable shade tree with pointed, bristle-tipped leaf lobes and reddish fall color. Its strong wood is a leading commercial hardwood across eastern North America.

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Mockernut Hickory

Mockernut hickory is a sturdy, slow-growing eastern hickory with fragrant, densely hairy leaves and very thick-shelled nuts. Its strong wood and golden fall color make it a valued forest and shade tree.

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