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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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.

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Magnolia

Magnolias are ancient flowering trees and shrubs prized for their large, fragrant, cup- or star-shaped blooms. They range from evergreen Southern magnolias to deciduous spring-flowering types.

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Sweetbay Magnolia

Sweetbay magnolia is a graceful native North American tree with creamy, lemon-scented summer flowers and silvery-backed leaves. Unusually for a magnolia, it thrives in wet, swampy ground.

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Star Magnolia

Star magnolia is a slow-growing small tree or large shrub that opens dozens of fragrant, many-petaled white star-shaped flowers in very early spring, often before any other tree blooms. Its compact size suits smaller gardens.

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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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Southern Live Oak

Southern Live Oak is a massive, spreading evergreen oak of the American Deep South, famous for its broad canopy draped in Spanish moss. It is among the longest-lived and most iconic trees of the region.

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Fraser Fir

A high-elevation Appalachian evergreen and a favorite premium Christmas tree, with fragrant, silvery-backed needles and excellent needle retention.

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Schisandra

Schisandra is a hardy deciduous climbing vine bearing dangling clusters of crimson berries. With fragrant spring flowers and bright autumn fruit, it is an attractive ornamental climber for cool gardens.

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Bald Cypress

A deciduous conifer of southern swamps, famous for its feathery foliage, buttressed trunk, and 'knees' that poke up from the water. Drops its needles in fall, hence 'bald.'

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Dewberry

Dewberry is a low, trailing relative of the blackberry that produces dark berries earlier in the season. Its sprawling thorny canes form ground-hugging mats.

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Silk Oak

The silk oak is a fast-growing Australian tree with fern-like silvery foliage and showy golden-orange, comb-shaped flowers in spring. It is widely grown for shade, timber and ornament, but can be weedy outside its range.

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Longleaf Pine

A stately fire-adapted pine that once dominated vast southeastern U.S. forests, prized for its very long needles, durable timber and grass-stage seedlings. Restoration of its open, biodiverse savannas is a major conservation effort.

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Live Oak

Live oak is a massive, sprawling evergreen oak of the American South, famous for wide spreading limbs draped in Spanish moss and an extremely strong, dense wood.

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Coulter Pine

A rugged southern California and Baja conifer famous for producing the heaviest pine cones in the world, sometimes weighing up to 5 pounds. Its stout, spiny cones and long blue-green needles make it unmistakable.

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Spanish Fir

Spanish Fir is a rare Mediterranean conifer from the mountains of southern Spain, prized for its dense, radially arranged blue-green needles that give branches a bottlebrush look. It is one of the few firs adapted to hot, dry summers.

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Mimosa Tree

A fast-growing ornamental tree with feathery fern-like leaves and fluffy pink powderpuff flowers, widely planted but invasive across the southern United States.

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Tulip Tree

One of the tallest eastern hardwoods, named for its showy tulip-shaped greenish-orange flowers and uniquely four-lobed leaves. A fast-growing member of the magnolia family.

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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.

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Overcup Oak

Overcup oak is a flood-tolerant white oak of southern US bottomlands, named for the acorn cap that nearly encloses the nut. Its toughness makes it an increasingly popular urban shade tree.

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Post Oak

Post oak is a slow-growing, drought-hardy white oak of the southern and central US, recognized by its cross-shaped leaves. Its rot-resistant wood was traditionally used for fence posts.

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