Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Aloe Vera
Aloe vera is a hardy succulent with thick, fleshy leaves arranged in a rosette and filled with a clear inner gel. It is easy to grow on a sunny windowsill and needs very little water.
succulentQueen Anne's Lace
Queen Anne's lace is a biennial wildflower with delicate, flat-topped clusters of tiny white flowers and a single dark floret in the center. It is the wild ancestor of the cultivated carrot.
flowerCentury Plant
A massive rosette-forming agave with thick, spiny, blue-grey leaves that grows for decades before sending up a towering flower stalk and then dying. It is an iconic architectural plant of arid gardens.
succulentAsparagus Fern
The asparagus fern is not a true fern but a relative of garden asparagus, grown for its soft, feathery sprays of bright green needle-like foliage. It is easy and fast-growing.
houseplantLadyfinger 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.
succulentCarrot
The carrot is a popular root vegetable grown for its taproot, most familiar in orange but also available in purple, red, yellow, and white. It is a biennial usually harvested in its first year.
herbNerve Plant
The nerve plant is a low, spreading tropical houseplant grown for its small leaves laced with bright white, pink, or red veins. It loves humidity and is a favorite for terrariums.
houseplantFittonia
Fittonia, or nerve plant, is a low-growing tropical houseplant prized for its small leaves laced with striking white, pink, or red vein patterns that resemble a delicate mosaic.
houseplantMonstera Esqueleto
A climbing Monstera whose mature leaves develop enormous, elongated fenestrations that open all the way to the leaf edge, leaving a skeletal, lace-like blade. It is a dramatic large-leaved collector's aroid.
houseplantFlamingo Flower
A tropical plant famous for its glossy, heart-shaped red 'flowers' (actually spathes) with a protruding spadix. Long-lasting blooms make it a popular gift plant.
flowerAnthurium
A tropical aroid famous for its glossy, heart-shaped, waxy bracts in red, pink, or white surrounding a slender flower spike. With bright light and humidity it can bloom nearly year-round.
houseplantTree Philodendron
Tree philodendron is a bold tropical foliage plant from South America with large, deeply lobed, glossy leaves that form a sprawling, trunk-forming clump as it matures.
houseplantColumbine
Columbine is a graceful perennial prized for its intricate, spurred flowers that nod above lacy blue-green foliage in late spring. It self-seeds readily and is a favorite of hummingbirds and bees.
flowerGolden Chain Tree
A small deciduous tree that drips with long, hanging chains of brilliant yellow pea-like flowers in late spring.
treeCardinal Flower
Cardinal flower is a moisture-loving native perennial bearing tall spikes of brilliant scarlet-red flowers in late summer. Its intense color is a magnet for hummingbirds.
flowerBluebeard
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.
shrubIndian Pipe
A ghostly white, leafless woodland plant that lacks chlorophyll and survives by parasitizing fungi, appearing as eerie translucent stems on the forest floor.
flowerWillow 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.
treeMock 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.
shrubNew 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.
flowerThanksgiving 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.
succulentRabbits 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.
fernGoldenrod
A tough, late-season perennial wildflower that lights up fields and roadsides with plumes of tiny golden flowers. Its heavy, sticky pollen is spread by insects rather than wind.
flowerFox Tail Agave
A soft, spineless agave with pale blue-green rosettes and a curving, foxtail-like flower spike. Unusual among agaves for its lack of sharp spines and tolerance of light shade.
succulent