Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Onion
The onion is a globally cultivated plant grown for its layered underground bulb. A biennial usually grown as an annual, it is one of the world's most widely grown garden plants.
herbGorgon's Grotto
A bold aeonium hybrid forming large, layered rosettes of green leaves often streaked with cream-yellow variegation and red margins. Its dense, ruffled rosettes look like coral or a sea grotto.
succulent
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.
treeHairy Bittercress
A small annual weed in the mustard family that forms a basal rosette and shoots tiny white flowers in early spring, followed by seed pods that explosively fling seeds. It is a common nuisance in nursery pots and garden beds.
herb
Meadow Rue
Meadow rue is an airy perennial with delicate, columbine-like foliage and fluffy clouds of tiny lilac, pink, or white flowers. It brings a soft, ethereal texture to part-shade borders.
flower
Red Pine
Red Pine is a tall, straight North American conifer prized for timber, recognizable by its reddish, scaly bark and long needles borne in pairs.
tree
Milkweed
Milkweed is a hardy native perennial with fragrant flower clusters and milky sap, best known as the essential host plant for monarch butterflies. Its seed pods release silk-tufted seeds in fall.
flower
Red Currant
A hardy deciduous shrub that bears glistening strings of translucent red berries in summer, grown in gardens as an ornamental and fruiting shrub.
shrub
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
Privet
A fast-growing, dense deciduous-to-semi-evergreen shrub long used for clipped hedges. It bears panicles of small white flowers and black berries, but is invasive in many regions.
shrub
Old Man Cactus
A columnar cactus famously cloaked in long, shaggy white hairs that resemble an old man's beard. The wool shields the plant from sun and cold while hiding sharp spines beneath.
succulent
Purslane
Purslane is a low, succulent annual with fleshy paddle-shaped leaves and trailing reddish stems. A widespread plant of warm, sunny ground, it grows both wild and as a cultivated garden vegetable.
succulent
Mexican Sunflower
A tall, fast-growing annual prized for its vivid orange-red daisy flowers that are magnets for butterflies and bees. It thrives in heat and poor soil where many other plants struggle.
flower
Potato
The potato is a cool-season nightshade-family plant grown for its starchy underground tubers, among the world's most widely cultivated staple crops. It is grown from 'seed potatoes' that sprout into leafy plants.
herb
Nordmann Fir
Nordmann Fir is the world's most popular Christmas tree, prized for its soft, glossy, dark green needles that resist dropping. Native to the Caucasus, it forms a dense, symmetrical pyramid.
tree
Prayer Plant
A low-growing tropical foliage plant famous for folding its decoratively veined leaves upward at night, like hands in prayer. Its oval leaves show striking patterns of green, cream and red.
houseplant
Natal Plum
Natal plum is a glossy, spiny evergreen shrub from South Africa with fragrant white flowers and red plum-like fruit. It is a tough, salt-tolerant choice for warm-climate hedges and coastal gardens.
shrub
Red Tip Photinia
Red tip photinia is a fast-growing evergreen shrub famous for its brilliant red new growth that matures to glossy green. It is one of the most popular shrubs for tall hedges and screens.
shrubMarjoram
Marjoram is a tender, aromatic Mediterranean herb closely related to oregano, grown as a culinary herb in gardens, pots, and on windowsills.
herb
Red Aglaonema
Red Aglaonema refers to a group of vividly colored Chinese evergreen cultivars whose leaves are flushed with pink, red, and crimson. Bred largely in Thailand, they bring rare warm tones to easy-care foliage houseplants.
houseplant
Mango Tree
The mango is a large tropical evergreen tree grown for its stone fruit. It thrives in hot, frost-free climates.
tree
Rabbit's Foot Fern
The Rabbit's Foot Fern is named for the fuzzy, silvery rhizomes that creep over the pot's edge like little furry feet. Its lacy, delicate fronds and unusual surface roots make it a striking, conversation-starting houseplant.
fern
Lupin
Lupin is a striking perennial bearing tall, dense spikes of pea-like flowers in vivid colors above palmate leaves. A legume, it fixes nitrogen and is a cottage-garden showstopper.
flower
Red Maple
Red maple is one of North America's most widespread and adaptable trees, prized for its brilliant scarlet fall color and early red flowers. It thrives in a remarkable range of soils, from swamps to dry ridges.
tree
Love-Lies-Bleeding
A dramatic annual amaranth grown for its long, ropelike crimson flower tassels that drape downward in bold cascades.
flower
Rattlesnake Master
A distinctive prairie perennial with yucca-like, spiny-edged leaves and greenish-white, golf-ball-shaped flower heads. Despite its name, it is a member of the carrot family.
flower
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
Red Hot Poker
Red hot poker is a bold perennial sending up torch-like spikes of tubular flowers that grade from fiery red at the top to yellow below. Its grassy clumps and dramatic blooms attract hummingbirds and bees.
flower
Majesty Palm
A graceful feather palm with arching fronds, popular as a large indoor floor plant. It demands plenty of light, moisture, and humidity to look its best.
tree
Poison Oak
Poison oak is a woody shrub or climbing vine native to North America, recognized by its compound leaves of three lobed leaflets that resemble oak foliage.
shrub
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
Rambutan Tree
The rambutan is a tropical evergreen tree bearing showy clusters of red, soft-spined fruit. It demands hot, humid, frost-free conditions.
tree
Mangosteen Tree
A slow-growing tropical evergreen known for its dark purple fruit with white segments. Notoriously demanding, it needs constant warmth and humidity and takes many years to fruit.
tree
Prairie Smoke
A charming North American prairie wildflower named for its feathery, smoke-like pink seed heads that follow nodding maroon spring flowers.
flower
Marsh Marigold
A cheerful wetland perennial that lights up pond edges and marshes with glossy, buttercup-yellow flowers in early spring. A member of the buttercup family, it thrives in mud and standing water where few other flowers bloom so early.
flower
Pumpkin
Pumpkin is a sprawling warm-season vine in the gourd family, grown for its large, ribbed orange fruits popular in autumn displays and decoration. It is one of the easiest and most rewarding garden crops where space allows.
herb
Lemongrass
Lemongrass is a tall tropical grass with a bright citrus aroma, grown as a culinary grass and aromatic ornamental in warm gardens.
grass
Rabbits Foot Fern
The rabbit's foot fern is a charming epiphytic fern named for the furry, creeping rhizomes that drape over its pot like soft animal paws, topped with delicate lacy fronds.
fern
Lilac
Lilacs are hardy deciduous shrubs cherished for their intensely fragrant spring flower clusters in shades of purple, lavender, pink, and white. They are long-lived and easy to grow in cold climates.
shrub
Pyracantha
Pyracantha, or firethorn, is a thorny evergreen shrub that bursts with white spring flowers and brilliant masses of red, orange, or yellow berries in fall. It makes a formidable hedge or espalier.
shrub
Lingonberry
A low, evergreen groundcover shrub bearing small red berries. It is hardy, ornamental and forms a dense, glossy mat.
shrub
Pomegranate Tree
The pomegranate is a deciduous fruiting shrub or small tree grown for its leathery-skinned fruit and showy orange-red flowers. It is hardy, drought-tolerant, and long-lived.
shrub
Ladyfinger Cactus
A clustering cactus of slender, finger-like stems covered in neat, star-like spine clusters. One of the easiest and most rewarding small cacti for beginners.
succulent
Queen Victoria Agave
A compact, slow-growing agave forming a near-perfect dome of dark green leaves painted with striking white markings. A prized, geometric collector's succulent.
succulent
Lady's Mantle
Lady's mantle is a soft, mounding perennial known for its scalloped, pleated leaves that catch dewdrops like beads of mercury, topped by airy sprays of chartreuse-green flowers. It is a versatile, low-maintenance plant for edging and softening borders.
flower
Queen of the Night
An epiphytic jungle cactus famous for its enormous, fragrant white flowers that open for a single night before wilting by dawn. It grows on flattened, leaf-like stems and is a celebrated rare bloomer.
succulent
Marshmallow
Marshmallow is a soft, downy wetland perennial in the mallow family, with velvety gray-green foliage and pale pink to white flowers. It grows in damp meadows and along riverbanks.
herb
Plum Tree
The plum tree is a deciduous stone-fruit tree grown for its fruit and early spring blossom. European plums (Prunus domestica) and Japanese plums (Prunus salicina) are the main cultivated types.
tree