Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Bull Thistle
Bull thistle is a spiny biennial weed with sharp, prickly leaves and large rose-purple flower heads that is both a pasture nuisance and a pollinator magnet.
flower
Globe Thistle
Globe thistle is a bold, architectural perennial topped with spherical, steel-blue flower heads above spiny, gray-green foliage. It is drought-tolerant and irresistible to bees.
flower
Sow Thistle
A leafy annual resembling a soft thistle, with milky sap, lobed prickle-edged leaves and small dandelion-like yellow flowers. It is a widespread garden and field weed.
herb
Musk Thistle
Musk thistle is a spiny biennial weed with large, nodding rose-purple flower heads; native to Eurasia, it is an aggressive invader of pastures and rangelands across North America.
flower
Milk Thistle
Milk thistle is a striking, spiny thistle with glossy white-marbled leaves and large purple flower heads. Robust and self-seeding, it can become a weed in warm climates.
herb
Canada Thistle
Canada thistle is an aggressive perennial weed with spiny leaves and small pink-purple flower heads that spreads relentlessly through deep, creeping roots. Despite its name it is native to Europe and Asia, and it is one of the most difficult agricultural weeds to control.
herb
Ponderosa Pine
Ponderosa pine is a tall, drought-hardy evergreen conifer of western North America, known for its long needles, large cones and puzzle-piece bark that smells of vanilla or butterscotch. It is a major western timber tree.
tree
Southern Magnolia
An iconic broadleaf evergreen tree of the American South, bearing huge fragrant white flowers and glossy leathery leaves. A symbol of Southern landscapes.
tree
Loblolly Pine
Loblolly pine is a fast-growing evergreen conifer of the southeastern United States and the region's most important timber tree. Tall and straight with long needles, it dominates southern forests and plantations.
tree
Gray Pine
A sparse, open-crowned California pine known for its ghostly gray-green foliage and enormous, heavy cones with large seeds. It is endemic to the dry foothills surrounding California's Central Valley.
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
Thimble Cactus
A tiny clustering cactus that produces masses of little thimble-sized offsets which detach at the slightest touch. The pale spines give the cluster a soft, frosty look.
succulent
Artichoke
The globe artichoke is a striking thistle grown in gardens for its large, scaly flower buds. Left unharvested, the buds open into large, vivid purple blooms.
herb
Sea Holly
Sea holly is a striking, drought-tolerant perennial with spiny, thistle-like flower heads surrounded by metallic silver-blue bracts. It thrives in poor, dry soils and adds architectural texture and a long-lasting, otherworldly color to sunny borders.
flower
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.
herb
Buffalo Berry
A tough, thorny North American shrub with silvery leaves and small red berries. Nitrogen-fixing and extremely drought- and cold-hardy, it forms dense thickets on poor soils.
shrub
Puncturevine
Puncturevine is a low, mat-forming summer weed notorious for its hard, spiny seed burs that puncture bicycle tires and bare feet. It thrives in hot, dry, disturbed ground and is widespread in warm regions worldwide.
herb
Globe Amaranth
A heat-loving annual grown for its round, clover-like flower heads of papery bracts in magenta, purple, pink, white or orange. The everlasting blooms keep their color when dried and stand up beautifully to summer heat and humidity.
flower
Thimbleberry
Thimbleberry is a thornless North American shrub with large maple-like leaves, white flowers, and soft red berries shaped like thimbles. It thrives in cool, shaded woodlands.
shrub
Harebell
A delicate, wiry perennial bearing nodding blue bell-shaped flowers on thread-like stems. Found across the Northern Hemisphere, it is famed as the bluebell of Scotland.
flower
Buckhorn Plantain
A common perennial lawn and field weed with a basal rosette of narrow, ribbed leaves and bullet-shaped flower heads on tall leafless stalks. It is widespread and persistent in lawns, pastures and roadsides.
herb
Shallot
Shallots are a clustering, small-bulbed member of the onion family grown in gardens. They form clusters of small bulbs and are easy to grow from sets.
herb
Hyacinth
Hyacinth is a spring bulb that produces dense, upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped flowers in vivid colors, prized for their powerful sweet fragrance.
flower
Daffodil
A cheerful spring bulb with trumpet-centered yellow or white flowers, among the first to bloom after winter. Daffodils are hardy, deer-resistant, and reliably perennial.
flower