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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Spirea

A versatile, easy-care deciduous shrub grown for clusters of pink or white flowers and often colorful foliage. Compact and reliable, spirea suits borders, mass plantings and low informal hedges.

shrub

Japanese Stiltgrass

Japanese stiltgrass is an aggressive annual grass from Asia that has become one of the most damaging invasive plants in eastern North American forests and shaded yards. It forms dense, sprawling mats that crowd out native ground flora.

grass

Japanese Andromeda

Japanese andromeda is an elegant evergreen shrub with cascading clusters of urn-shaped flowers in early spring and colorful new growth. It pairs beautifully with azaleas and rhododendrons.

shrub

Japanese Knotweed

Japanese knotweed is an aggressive bamboo-like perennial that spreads by powerful rhizomes, damaging pavement and buildings and ranking among the world's worst invasive plants.

shrub

Japanese Maple

A small, elegant ornamental tree prized for delicate, deeply lobed leaves in shades of red, green and purple, and spectacular fall color. A centerpiece of Japanese gardens.

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Japanese Larch

Japanese Larch is a fast-growing deciduous conifer whose soft needles turn brilliant gold before dropping in autumn. Native to Japan, it is a popular timber tree and a favorite for bonsai.

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Japanese Aucuba

Japanese aucuba is a shade-loving evergreen shrub with bold, glossy leaves, often speckled gold, earning it the name gold dust plant. It brings light and color to dark, difficult corners.

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Japanese Cedar

Japanese Cedar, or sugi, is a tall, fast-growing evergreen conifer native to Japan and the national tree of that country. It has soft, awl-shaped needles and reddish, fibrous, peeling bark.

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Japanese Yew

Japanese Yew is a versatile, shade-tolerant evergreen shrub or small tree widely used for hedges, with flat dark needles and red, berry-like arils.

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Bloodgood Japanese Maple

Bloodgood is the classic deep-red Japanese maple, holding its dark burgundy-purple leaf color through summer better than most cultivars before turning crimson in fall. It is an elegant upright specimen tree.

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Japanese Black Pine

Japanese Black Pine is a rugged coastal conifer with dark bark, stiff needles, and a picturesque irregular form. It is a classic bonsai and ornamental tree highly tolerant of salt and wind.

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Bluebeard

Bluebeard is a compact late-summer shrub smothered in clusters of blue flowers that pollinators adore. It is heat- and drought-tolerant and blooms when most shrubs have finished.

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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.

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Skimmia

Skimmia is a compact, shade-loving evergreen shrub valued for fragrant spring flowers, ornamental red winter berries, and showy red flower buds that decorate the plant all winter.

shrub

Loquat Tree

An evergreen subtropical fruit tree bearing clusters of orange fruit in late winter and spring. Ornamental and easy to grow, it offers lush foliage and unusually timed blossoms.

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Spider Plant

The spider plant is a fast-growing, easy-care houseplant with arching variegated leaves and dangling baby plantlets called 'spiderettes.' It is adaptable and one of the best plants for beginners.

houseplant

Wisteria

Wisteria is a vigorous woody climbing vine famous for dramatic cascades of fragrant purple, blue, or white flowers in spring. It is beautiful but can become invasive and needs firm pruning.

shrub

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.

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Lilac Tree

The Japanese lilac tree is the tree-form member of the lilac family, producing huge creamy-white fragrant flower plumes in early summer. It is a tough, compact street and lawn tree.

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Camellia

Camellias are elegant evergreen shrubs with glossy dark foliage and large, rose-like blooms in winter and early spring. Their long flowering season and lush leaves make them prized in shade gardens.

shrub

Kerria

Kerria is a graceful deciduous shrub in the rose family, grown for its arching green stems and cheerful golden-yellow spring flowers. It is one of the few flowering shrubs that blooms well in shade.

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Saucer Magnolia

A deciduous magnolia famous for large, goblet-shaped pink-and-white blooms that open on bare branches in early spring. It is one of the most widely planted flowering trees in temperate gardens.

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Kousa Dogwood

Kousa dogwood is an elegant small tree with pointed white bracts in late spring, raspberry-like fruit, and striking exfoliating bark. It is more disease-resistant than the native flowering dogwood.

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Umbrella Pine

Japanese Umbrella Pine is a unique living-fossil conifer, the sole member of its family, with glossy whorls of needle-like cladodes arranged like the ribs of an umbrella. It is slow-growing and prized as an ornamental.

tree