Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Mugwort
A tall, aromatic perennial with silvery-backed, deeply cut leaves, long associated with folklore. It is hardy, vigorous, and often weedy along roadsides.
herb
Lychee Tree
A subtropical evergreen tree producing clusters of red, knobbly-skinned fruit. It is a beautiful but demanding tree that needs precise climate conditions to fruit.
tree
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
Lily
True lilies are summer-blooming bulbs with large, often fragrant, trumpet-shaped flowers on tall stems. They are easy garden perennials prized in borders and as cut flowers.
flower
Katsura Tree
A graceful Asian shade tree with heart-shaped blue-green leaves that turn gold and apricot in fall, famously releasing a sweet scent of burnt sugar or cotton candy.
tree
Ironweed
A tall, robust native perennial crowned in late summer with clusters of intensely purple flowers. Its tough, wiry stems and iron-hard durability give it its name.
flower
Garlic
Garlic is a pungent bulbous member of the onion family grown worldwide as a garden and field crop, recognized by its strap-like foliage and segmented underground bulb.
herb
Jacaranda
A subtropical tree famous for spectacular clouds of violet-blue trumpet flowers in spring, paired with delicate fern-like foliage and a broad, airy canopy.
tree
Huckleberry
A wild, blueberry-like shrub of western North American mountains, bearing small purple-black berries. Notoriously difficult to cultivate, it grows mostly in the wild.
shrub
Hydrangea Tree
The hydrangea tree is a panicle hydrangea trained to a single trunk, topped with large cone-shaped clusters of white flowers that age to pink in late summer. It is the hardiest and most sun-tolerant of the hydrangeas.
shrub
Garlic Mustard
Garlic mustard is an aggressive biennial herb with garlic-scented leaves and small white flowers, and one of North America's most damaging invasive plants.
herb
Gladiolus
Gladiolus is a tall summer bulb that sends up dramatic spikes of funnel-shaped flowers in nearly every color, a staple of cutting gardens and floral arrangements.
flower
Elderberry
Elderberry is a fast-growing deciduous shrub bearing large creamy flower clusters in early summer and drooping bunches of small dark purple-black berries in late summer.
shrub
English Daisy
The English daisy is a low, cheerful perennial with white-to-pink petaled flowers around a yellow center, beloved in cottage gardens and famous as the daisy of lawns and daisy-chains.
flower
Eastern Redbud
A small understory tree famous for the cloud of pink-purple flowers that bloom directly on its bare branches in early spring. Native to eastern North America.
tree
Cholla Cactus
A group of shrubby to treelike desert cacti with cylindrical, jointed segments and barbed spines that detach easily. Iconic plants of the American Southwest deserts.
succulent
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
Chinese Evergreen
A tough, colorful foliage plant tolerant of low light, valued for its patterned leaves in green, silver, pink or red. A reliable beginner-friendly houseplant.
houseplant
Catmint
A soft, billowing perennial with gray-green aromatic foliage and a long haze of small lavender-blue flowers. Tough, drought-proof, deer-resistant, and a magnet for bees.
herb
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
Butterfly Weed
Butterfly weed is a native milkweed bearing flat clusters of brilliant orange flowers in summer. It is a top nectar plant for butterflies and a larval host for monarchs.
flower
Blanket Flower
A heat-loving, daisy-like perennial in fiery bands of red, orange, and yellow that bloom nonstop all summer. Tough, drought-proof, and beloved by bees and butterflies.
flower
Black Walnut
A large, valuable native hardwood prized for its rich, dark timber. Its roots release juglone, a compound that inhibits the growth of many nearby plants.
tree
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