Plant Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.
Velvet Calathea
A prayer-plant relative with long, wavy-edged leaves that are velvety to the touch and flushed deep maroon underneath. Beautiful but thirsty for humidity and sensitive to hard water.
houseplant
Alocasia Black Velvet
A compact jewel Alocasia prized for its near-black, velvety heart-shaped leaves veined in striking silvery-white. Its small stature and dramatic contrast make it a collector favorite, though it is fussy about humidity.
houseplant
Velvet Shield Anthurium
This collector's anthurium is grown for its large, velvety, heart-shaped leaves emblazoned with bold, contrasting white veins. The thick, dark foliage has a stiff, almost cardboard-like texture that gives it its nicknames.
houseplant
Philodendron Micans
An easy-going trailing philodendron with soft, velvety heart-shaped leaves in deep green to bronze, often shimmering with iridescent purple and pink tones. A forgiving choice for hanging baskets.
houseplant
Velvetleaf
A tall summer annual with large, soft, heart-shaped velvety leaves and yellow flowers, a major agricultural weed of corn and soybean fields. Its distinctive cup-shaped seed pods and fibrous stems make it easy to recognize.
herb
Love-Lies-Bleeding
A dramatic annual amaranth grown for its long, ropelike crimson flower tassels that drape downward in bold cascades.
flower
Alocasia Frydek
A velvet-leaved elephant ear with deep emerald-green arrow-shaped leaves and bold white veins. It is dramatic and upright but notoriously demanding about humidity and watering.
houseplant
Anthurium Clarinervium
Anthurium Clarinervium is a striking foliage aroid with large, heart-shaped, velvety dark green leaves dramatically veined in contrasting silvery-white. Native to Mexican limestone forests, it is grown for its bold, textured foliage rather than flowers.
houseplant
Pumpkin
Pumpkin is a sprawling warm-season vine in the gourd family, grown for its large, ribbed orange fruits popular in autumn displays and decoration. It is one of the easiest and most rewarding garden crops where space allows.
herb
Mullein
Mullein is a striking biennial that forms a rosette of soft, woolly leaves the first year and a towering yellow flower spike the second. It is a classic wildflower herb of dry, open ground.
herb
Wintercreeper
Wintercreeper is an extremely tough evergreen groundcover or climbing shrub, often grown for its variegated foliage. It tolerates harsh sites but is invasive in many regions.
shrub
Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is a small, drought-tolerant evergreen shrub of India and the Mediterranean in the nightshade family. It has dull green leaves and small berries held in papery husks.
shrub
Daphne
Daphne is a compact evergreen shrub famous for intensely fragrant late-winter flowers. It is gorgeous but finicky, demanding perfect drainage and resenting disturbance.
shrub
Winterberry
Winterberry is a deciduous holly native to eastern North America, prized for the dense clusters of brilliant red berries that cling to its bare branches through winter. Unlike most hollies it drops its leaves, leaving a striking show of fruit against snow.
shrub
Annual Bluegrass
A low-growing, light-green annual grass that is one of the most widespread lawn and turf weeds in the world. It forms clumps, seeds prolifically even when mowed short, and turns unsightly in summer heat.
grass
Hellebore
An evergreen shade perennial that blooms in late winter and early spring, when little else does, with nodding, cup-shaped flowers in white, pink, plum, and green. Long-lived and deer-resistant.
flower
Savory
An aromatic Mediterranean herb in the mint family, grown in gardens as a culinary herb. Summer savory is a tender annual; winter savory a hardy perennial.
herb
Leek
The leek is a hardy allium grown for its long, blanched white shank of tightly wrapped leaf bases. Cold-tolerant and slow-growing, it is a classic autumn and winter garden vegetable.
herb
Spaghetti Squash
Spaghetti squash is a winter squash that grows as an oval yellow fruit on vigorous summer vines. The fruit stores well into fall and winter.
herb
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
Corn Speedwell
Corn speedwell is a tiny low-growing winter annual weed with small, deep-blue flowers and rounded toothed leaves. It commonly carpets lawns, gardens, and bare ground in late winter and spring.
herb
Kentucky Coffeetree
A bold, coarse-textured native tree with enormous twice-compound leaves and thick leathery seedpods that persist into winter.
tree
Clementine Tree
A small, virtually seedless mandarin with glossy deep-orange skin that peels easily. It is a popular winter citrus borne on a compact, attractive evergreen tree.
tree
Butternut Squash
Butternut squash is a winter squash with a tan, bell-shaped rind grown on vigorous trailing vines. The hard-skinned fruit stores well for months.
herb