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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Mulberry Tree

A fast-growing deciduous tree producing abundant blackberry-like fruit. White mulberry is also famous as the sole food of silkworms.

tree

Chestnut Oak

A rugged white-oak of dry rocky ridges, recognized by its deeply furrowed bark and chestnut-like, wavy-toothed leaves.

tree

Weeping Nootka Cypress

Weeping Nootka Cypress is a graceful evergreen conifer with sweeping, drooping branchlets that hang like curtains from upturned limbs. It is a striking, hardy specimen tree for cool climates.

tree

Willow Oak

A fast-growing red-oak with narrow, willow-like leaves that lack the typical oak lobes, prized as a tough shade and street tree across the southeastern United States.

tree

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

Mock Orange

A deciduous shrub grown for its profuse, intensely fragrant white late-spring flowers that smell like orange blossom. Easy and hardy, it is a nostalgic favorite of cottage gardens.

shrub

Nasturtium

Nasturtiums are easygoing annuals with round, lily-pad leaves and bright spurred flowers in fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. They are a cheerful, low-fuss choice for beds, baskets, and borders.

herb

New England Aster

A robust native perennial that crowns the fall garden with masses of purple, daisy-like flowers around golden centers. It is a magnet for late-season bees and migrating monarch butterflies.

flower

Loropetalum

Loropetalum is an evergreen shrub prized for its spidery, fringe-like flowers and—in popular cultivars—deep burgundy foliage. It blooms heavily in spring with sporadic reflushes through the year.

shrub

Living Stones

Tiny, stem-less succulents that mimic pebbles to avoid being grazed. They split to reveal new leaves and produce daisy-like flowers, but need a strict dry regime.

succulent

California Juniper

California Juniper is a rugged desert shrub or small tree of the arid Southwest, with gray-green scale foliage, reddish berry-like cones, and a gnarled habit prized for bonsai.

shrub

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are a cool-season brassica that produces dozens of small, cabbage-like buds along a tall central stalk. Slow to mature, they are a hallmark of autumn and winter gardens.

herb

Brain Cactus

A crested form of the ladyfinger cactus whose fused, fan-like growth folds into convoluted ridges resembling a brain. A novelty succulent prized for its sculptural, undulating surface.

succulent

Blue Flame Cactus

A fast-growing, heavily branching columnar cactus with powdery blue-green ribbed stems. Its many upright arms cluster like dancing flames, hence the name.

succulent

Salmonberry

Salmonberry is a Pacific Northwest bramble with magenta spring flowers and golden-to-red raspberry-like fruit. It thrives in moist, shaded coastal habitats.

shrub

Rosemary

An aromatic, woody Mediterranean herb with needle-like evergreen leaves and a piney fragrance, grown as a culinary herb and as a drought-tolerant ornamental shrub.

herb

Sago Palm

An ancient, palm-like cycad with a stout trunk and a symmetrical crown of stiff, feathery dark-green fronds. Despite the name it is not a true palm.

shrub

Plumbago

Plumbago is a sprawling evergreen shrub covered for months in clusters of soft sky-blue, phlox-like flowers. It thrives in heat and is a favorite of butterflies.

shrub

Hollywood Juniper

Hollywood Juniper is a sculptural Chinese juniper cultivar famous for its dramatically twisted, irregular branches and rich green scale-like foliage.

shrub

Jabuticaba

A slow-growing Brazilian tree remarkable for producing its grape-like purple-black fruit directly on the trunk and main branches (cauliflory).

tree

Threadleaf False Cypress

Threadleaf false cypress is an evergreen conifer with long, drooping, whip-like thread foliage that gives a soft, mounding, weeping texture. Golden forms are especially popular as garden accents.

tree

Thanksgiving Cactus

The Thanksgiving cactus is a forest cactus that blooms in late autumn with colorful, tubular flowers. It is distinguished from the Christmas cactus by the sharp, claw-like teeth on its flattened stem segments.

succulent

Umbrella Tree

The umbrella tree is a fast-growing tropical plant whose glossy leaflets radiate from a central point like the spokes of an umbrella. It makes a lush, easy-care indoor tree.

tree

Purple Waffle Plant

The Purple Waffle Plant has puckered, metallic green leaves with deep purple undersides that give a quilted, waffle-like texture. It is a low, spreading plant great for terrariums and groundcover.

houseplant