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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Hackberry

A tough, adaptable North American shade tree with distinctive warty, corky bark and small dark berries relished by birds. It tolerates drought, wind, poor soil, and urban conditions with ease.

tree

Bay Laurel

Bay laurel is an aromatic evergreen tree or shrub, a classic culinary herb most often grown as an elegant clipped topiary or hedge. Slow-growing and easily shaped.

herb

Weeping Fig

A popular indoor tree with a graceful, weeping canopy of small glossy leaves. It is attractive but notorious for dropping leaves when stressed or moved.

tree

Smokebush

A deciduous shrub famous for the airy, smoke-like haze of fluffy flower stalks that envelop the plant in summer. Many cultivars add dramatic purple or gold foliage and fiery fall color.

shrub

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

Meyer Lemon

A compact, productive citrus tree thought to be a cross between a lemon and a mandarin or orange, with thin, fragrant skin and rounder fruit than a standard lemon.

tree

Horse Chestnut

Horse chestnut is a large deciduous shade tree famous for its showy upright spikes of spring flowers and shiny brown conkers in spiky husks.

tree

Fiddle Leaf Fig

The fiddle leaf fig is a striking indoor tree with huge, violin-shaped glossy leaves. It is a designer favorite but can be fussy, demanding consistent bright light and stable conditions.

tree

Collard Greens

Collard greens are a hardy, non-heading form of cabbage grown for their large, broad blue-green leaves. A leafy garden vegetable, they are cold-tolerant and productive over a long season.

herb

Norfolk Island Pine

Norfolk Island Pine is a tropical conifer with symmetrical tiers of soft, feathery branches, popular as a houseplant and living Christmas tree. It is not a true pine.

houseplant

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a fast-growing, aromatic Australian tree prized for its fragrant, oil-rich foliage and distinctive peeling bark. The blue gum is one of the most widely planted species worldwide for timber and ornamental use.

tree

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

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

Sweetbay Magnolia

Sweetbay magnolia is a graceful native North American tree with creamy, lemon-scented summer flowers and silvery-backed leaves. Unusually for a magnolia, it thrives in wet, swampy ground.

tree

Arborvitae

Arborvitae is a dense, evergreen conifer with flat sprays of scale-like foliage, widely planted as hedges and privacy screens. It is easy to grow and tolerates a range of conditions.

tree

Firesticks

A pencil-thin, branching succulent whose cylindrical stems turn brilliant orange, red, and yellow in cool, sunny weather. It is a dramatic landscape and container plant with slender, leafless stems.

succulent

Freesia

Freesia is a South African bulb prized for its arching sprays of richly perfumed, funnel-shaped flowers in a rainbow of colors, popular as a cut flower.

flower

Wintercreeper

Wintercreeper is an extremely tough evergreen groundcover or climbing shrub, often grown for its variegated foliage. It tolerates harsh sites but is invasive in many regions.

shrub

Gasteria

Gasteria is a slow-growing South African succulent with thick, tongue-shaped leaves often arranged in fans, named for its curved, stomach-shaped flowers.

succulent

Elephant Bush

Elephant bush is a fast-growing South African succulent shrub with small round jade-green leaves on reddish stems, popular as a houseplant, bonsai subject, and carbon-storing landscape plant.

succulent

Amaryllis

The popular indoor amaryllis is a bulb (genus Hippeastrum) that produces towering stalks topped with huge, trumpet-shaped flowers, often forced for winter bloom. True Amaryllis is a separate South African genus.

flower

Calathea Triostar

A vivid prayer plant relative with variegated leaves splashed in cream, green, and pink, and dramatic deep-magenta undersides. Like other Marantaceae, its leaves fold up at night.

houseplant

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

Flame Violet

The Flame Violet is a trailing tropical plant grown for both its velvety, metallic-patterned leaves and its vivid red-orange flowers. A relative of the African violet, it spreads by runners to form a lush carpet.

houseplant