Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
False Sunflower
False sunflower is a tough native perennial covered in golden-yellow daisy-like blooms all summer. It resembles a true sunflower but returns reliably year after year.
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Sunflower
A fast-growing annual famous for its large golden flower heads that track the sun while young. Native to North America, it is grown for ornament and as a cut flower.
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Sneezeweed
Sneezeweed is a cheerful late-summer perennial bearing masses of daisy-like flowers with raised central cones in warm shades of yellow, orange, red and bronze. Despite its name, it doesn't cause sneezing from pollen; the name comes from old use of its dried leaves as snuff.
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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.
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Common Sunflower
The common sunflower is a fast-growing annual famous for its large golden flower heads that track the sun; it is grown worldwide as an ornamental and oilseed crop.
flower
False Aralia
False aralia is grown for its delicate, lacy foliage - slender, saw-toothed leaflets that radiate like fingers and emerge coppery before darkening to near-black green. It brings a fine, airy texture to bright indoor spaces.
houseplant
False Indigo
A long-lived, shrubby perennial legume with spires of indigo-blue, lupine-like flowers in late spring and attractive blue-green foliage all season.
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False Shamrock
A bulbous plant with deep purple, triangular three-part leaves that fold up at night like butterfly wings. Easy to grow, it also produces dainty pale pink or white flowers.
houseplant
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
Astilbe
A shade-loving perennial topped with feathery, plume-like flower panicles in pink, red, lavender, or white above fern-like foliage. Prized for bringing color and softness to moist, dappled gardens.
flowerCape Primrose
Cape primrose is a compact, long-blooming relative of the African violet, prized for its rosettes of soft, strappy leaves and clouds of trumpet-shaped flowers in blues, purples, pinks and white. It flowers for months with very little fuss on a bright windowsill.
houseplant
Black Locust
Black locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fragrant white spring flowers and extremely hard, rot-resistant wood. A nitrogen-fixing legume, it is valued for timber and erosion control but can be invasive.
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Wild Indigo
A long-lived native prairie perennial that forms a shrub-like mound of blue-green foliage topped by spikes of indigo-blue, pea-like flowers. Its deep taproot makes it exceptionally drought tolerant and nearly permanent in the garden.
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Obedient Plant
Obedient plant is a native perennial with tall spikes of pink to white snapdragon-like flowers in late summer. It earns its name because pushed flowers stay in their new position.
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Foamflower
Foamflower is a charming native woodland perennial with maple-like, often patterned leaves and frothy spikes of tiny, star-shaped white or pink flowers in spring. It forms a delicate groundcover for shady gardens.
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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
Siberian Bugloss
Siberian bugloss is a shade perennial grown for its large, heart-shaped leaves, often silvered, and sprays of dainty blue flowers resembling forget-me-nots in spring. It is a workhorse for woodland gardens.
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Hinoki Cypress
Hinoki Cypress is an elegant evergreen conifer with rich green, fan-like foliage held in graceful sprays. Slow-growing dwarf cultivars are popular for gardens, containers, and bonsai.
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Wood Sorrel
Wood sorrel is a clover-like herb with heart-shaped trifoliate leaves and small flowers, common as a garden and lawn weed.
herb
Brunnera
Brunnera is a shade perennial grown for its large, heart-shaped leaves, often beautifully silvered, and its dainty sprays of sky-blue, forget-me-not-like flowers in spring. It is a standout foliage plant for woodland and shady borders.
flower
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
Compass Plant
A towering prairie perennial with large yellow sunflower-like blooms and deeply cut leaves that align north-south to avoid the midday sun, giving it its navigational name.
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Creeping Zinnia
Creeping zinnia is a low, spreading annual smothered in tiny gold-and-black daisy flowers that resemble miniature sunflowers. It is heat- and drought-tolerant, making it ideal for edging, baskets, and groundcover.
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