Plants

Trees with large canopies can dwarf almost anything else in a landscape, and according to the National Wildlife Federation, the crowns of the largest southern live oaks reach diameters of up to 150 feet, nearly large enough to encompass half a football field, even though the average specimen spreads a still-impressive 80 feet. According to … Read more

Trees with smooth gray bark stand out immediately in a forest full of furrowed, plated, and shaggy trunks, and according to Virginia Tech’s Cooperative Extension, American and European beech both carry a smooth, sensuous dark gray bark considered exceptionally attractive, though that same smoothness unfortunately makes both species a favorite target for people carving initials … Read more

Trees with heart shaped leaves are genuinely easy to confuse with one another at a glance, and according to Colorado State University Extension’s Master Gardener program, linden leaves have a distinctly uneven, asymmetrical base where one side sits lower than the other, a detail that separates them immediately from the more evenly symmetrical heart shape … Read more

Trees with white bark aren’t simply showing off, and according to research on bark coloration, that pale color reflects sunlight in a way that helps a tree stay safely dormant longer during an early winter thaw rather than breaking dormancy prematurely and risking damage from the next hard frost. That function, called bark thermoregulation, is … Read more

Trees with large seed pods produce some of the most visually dramatic fruiting structures in the entire plant kingdom, and according to University of Minnesota’s Campus Trees program, catalpa’s long, green, cigar-like seed pods can reach up to 22 inches, among the most distinctive of any tree grown in North America. That single species alone … Read more

Weeds with orange flowers are genuinely harder to find in number than weeds of almost any other color, since true orange is one of the rarer pigments in the plant world, produced by carotenoid compounds that show up far less often in wild, unselected populations than the anthocyanins responsible for purple, pink, and blue blooms. … Read more

Weeds with pink flowers include 2 closely related plants that cause enough field confusion to warrant their own dedicated comparison from multiple universities, and according to Cornell University’s Weed Science program, lady’s thumb produces pink to red-purple flowers in clusters about an inch long, while Pennsylvania smartweed produces pale to bright pink or white flowers … Read more

Weeds with white flowers include one of the most consequential identification mix-ups in all of home gardening, and according to University of Maryland Extension, poison hemlock is commonly mistaken for its harmless relative Queen Anne’s lace, even though one is a genuinely deadly plant and the other is simply an unassuming roadside wildflower. Michigan State … Read more

Invasive plants in Ohio have been subject to formal state regulation since 2018, when, according to Ohio State University Extension’s BYGL program, the Ohio Department of Agriculture finalized rules following nearly 2 years of stakeholder outreach, restricting the sale, growth, and distribution of 38 species determined to cause or likely cause economic or environmental harm. … Read more

Prohibited or banned plants in California work through a rating system that’s considerably more granular than a simple yes-or-no ban, and according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Encycloweedia, a noxious weed is any plant that’s been formally defined as a pest by law or regulation, with California’s own list differing significantly from … Read more