Plant Names

A

Aaron's Beard

With a name that sounds more like a folk singer than a plant, Aaron's Beard is actually a vigorous flowering groundcover known for its bright yellow blooms.

🌼 Garden Tip: Give this enthusiastic grower plenty of room—it likes to spread.

Adam's Needle

Despite the name, no sewing is required. This dramatic yucca produces sword-like leaves and towering white flower spikes that attract pollinators.

🦋 Nature Note: Yucca plants have a fascinating partnership with the tiny yucca moth, which pollinates the flowers.

B

Bachelor's Buttons

These cheerful blue flowers have never successfully fastened a shirt. They've brightened gardens for centuries and remain a favorite in cottage gardens.

🌼 Garden Tip: Easy to grow from seed and excellent for attracting bees and butterflies.

Balls of Fire

This fiery ornamental pepper certainly lives up to its name. Covered with brilliant red peppers, it looks as though tiny flames have taken over the plant.

🌶️ Garden Tip: Although ornamental peppers are beautiful, many are surprisingly hot. Admire first...taste later.

Bear's Breeches

Big, bold, and impossible to ignore, Bear's Breeches have decorated gardens since ancient Greece with their dramatic flower spikes.

🌼 Garden Tip: Once established, they're surprisingly easy to grow and make an impressive focal point.

Bitch's Breeches

No...your eyes aren't playing tricks on you.

While Bear's Breeches is a well-known ornamental plant, Bitch's Breeches is a humorous nickname that occasionally pops up among gardeners with a slightly mischievous sense of humor.

🌼 Garden tip: Slugs and snails love its tasty leaves.

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Bleeding Heart

One look at the flowers explains the name. Each bloom resembles a tiny pink heart with a delicate white teardrop.

🦋 Nature Note: One of spring's favorite flowers for early pollinators.

Blue Balls

Despite what your friends may insist, this isn't a medical condition. "Blue Balls" is one common name for Globe Thistle, whose striking steel-blue flowers are loved by bees and butterflies.

🦋 Nature Note: Globe Thistle is one of the best pollinator plants you can grow.

C

Carolina Reaper

One of the hottest peppers on Earth. Countless people have questioned their life choices after taking just one bite.

🌶️ Garden Tip: Wear gloves when handling Carolina Reapers. Your future self will thank you.

Clematis

One of the world's most beautiful flowering vines.

And despite what autocorrect—and your Gramma—may tell you over Christmas dinner, it's Clematis, not chlamydia.

🌼 Garden Tip: Most clematis prefer "cool feet and sunny faces." Shade the roots while letting the vines climb into the sunshine.

Cock's Comb

With blooms that resemble a rooster's comb—or perhaps a velvet brain—this flower has been turning heads for centuries.

🌼 Garden Tip: Excellent as both a fresh and dried flower.

Corpse Flower

If plants handed out awards for "Worst Smell on Earth," this giant would almost certainly win.

Its odor attracts flies and beetles that help pollinate the flower.

🤯 Did You Know? A blooming Corpse Flower often draws thousands of visitors whenever it flowers at a botanical garden.

D

Dead Man's Fingers

This ghostly-looking fungus grows from decaying wood and looks remarkably like its name.

Fortunately, it's much friendlier than it appears.

🍄 Nature Note: Fungi like this help recycle nutrients back into healthy forest soil.

Devil's Dipstick

Sometimes it feels like botanists held a contest to invent the most outrageous plant names.

This phallic-shaped fungus is neon-orange and red and has a black upper tip. It loves to grow in decaying organic matter and is often found in mulch beds.

E

Elephant's Ears

With leaves large enough to make a statement in any garden, Elephant's Ears instantly create a lush, tropical look.

🌼 Garden Tip: They thrive in rich soil, warm weather, and consistent moisture.

F

Ficus erecta

Botanists gave it a perfectly respectable Latin name.

Everyone else giggles.

This handsome fig relative is prized for its attractive foliage and has helped breeders develop disease-resistant edible figs.

🌼 Garden Tip: Prefers bright light and well-drained soil.

G

Goat's Beard

Tall feathery plumes give this elegant perennial one of gardening's funniest names.

Despite the name...

...it has remarkably good manners.

🌼 Garden Tip: Thrives in moist soil and partial shade.

H

Hairy Balls

Nope...we're still not making this up.

Hairy Balls is a nickname for the curious seed pods of the Balloon Plant, a close relative of milkweed that's guaranteed to start conversations.

🦋 Nature Note: Like milkweed, Balloon Plant can provide food for monarch caterpillars.

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I

Indian Pipe

At first glance, Indian Pipe looks more like a ghost than a plant. Its ghostly white stems contain no chlorophyll, so it doesn't make its own food like most plants.

🤯 Did You Know? Instead of photosynthesis, Indian Pipe obtains nutrients through a fascinating relationship with underground fungi.

J

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

One of North America's most unusual native wildflowers. Look inside the hooded flower and you'll find "Jack"—a little club-like spike—standing inside his tiny pulpit.

🦋 Nature Note: This woodland wildflower thrives in rich, moist forests throughout much of eastern North America.

Johnny-Jump-Up

These cheerful little violas have a habit of appearing where you least expect them, earning one of gardening's happiest names.

🌼 Garden Tip: Johnny-Jump-Ups often reseed themselves, rewarding gardeners with surprise blooms each spring.

Judas Tree

Every spring this beautiful tree bursts into brilliant pink blossoms before its leaves appear.

🤯 Did You Know? Its unusual name comes from a Christian reference for the tree that Judas Iscariot used to hang himself for betraying Jesus.

K

Kiss-Me-Over-the-Garden-Gate

Victorian gardeners clearly had a flair for dramatic plant names.

This graceful heirloom annual produces tall spikes of rosy-pink flowers that sway beautifully in the summer breeze.

🦋 Nature Note: Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds all enjoy its nectar-rich blooms.

Knobby Dick

Sometimes Mother Nature simply refuses to take herself seriously.

Knobby Dick is the common name for a rare, mutated cultivar of the Bolivian Torch cactus. Its resemblance to the male penis shape has made it famous around the world.

🌵 Did You Know? Knobby dick plants can have a short form and a long form. And just like in humans, no two knobby dick plants look exactly alike. Aren’t you glad you looked this up?

L

Lady's Mantle

Morning dew gathers on its leaves like tiny sparkling diamonds, making this one of the garden's quiet showstoppers.

🌼 Garden Tip: Perfect for edging pathways and cottage gardens.

Liverleaf

Thankfully, the flowers are much prettier than the name suggests.

This delicate woodland wildflower is often among the very first to bloom each spring.

🦋 Nature Note: Early spring flowers provide valuable nectar for awakening pollinators.

Love-Lies-Bleeding

Its long crimson flower tassels create one of the most dramatic displays in the garden.

Fortunately, despite the name, no actual romance or acts of violence are required.

🌼 Garden Tip: Birds often enjoy its nutritious seeds later in the season.

Lungwort

Marketing clearly wasn't involved in naming this plant.

Fortunately, its beautiful spotted leaves and colorful spring flowers speak for themselves.

🦋 Nature Note: Bumblebees especially appreciate its early-season nectar.

M

Mother-in-Law's Tongue

One of the toughest houseplants you'll ever own. Named after it sharp, sword-like leaves.

If you've accidentally neglected a houseplant before...this one probably forgives you.

🌼 Garden Tip: Allow the soil to dry between waterings. Too much attention usually causes more problems than too little.

N

Naked Ladies

Elegant pink flowers suddenly appear in late summer without a single leaf in sight, earning one of gardening's most unforgettable names.

🦋 Nature Note: They provide valuable nectar for late-season pollinators.

Nipplewort

Despite the eyebrow-raising name, Nipplewort is a perfectly respectable member of the daisy family.

🤯 Did You Know? Many unusual common plant names originated hundreds of years ago through folklore and traditional herbal medicine.

O

Old Man's Beard

Whether you're talking about a woodland vine or a silvery lichen, Old Man's Beard has one of nature's most memorable names. The woody climbing vine (in the Clematis family) has feathery, white seed heads that look like an elderly man’s beard.

🦋 Nature Note: Lichens are remarkable partnerships between fungi and algae, living together as a single organism.

P

Pussy Toes

These soft, fuzzy flowers really do resemble tiny cat paws.

No imagination required.

🦋 Nature Note: Pussy Toes are important host plants for several butterfly species.

R

Resurrection Plant

It appears completely dead during dry weather...

...until it rains.

Within hours, this remarkable plant begins turning green again.

🤯 Did You Know? Some Resurrection Plants can survive months without water before springing back to life.

S

Sneezewort

Ironically, Sneezewort usually won't make you sneeze.

Its cheerful white flowers have brightened gardens for centuries.

🤯 Did You Know? The name comes from its historical use in herbal snuff—not because it causes allergies.

Solomon's Seal

Graceful arching stems and dangling bell-shaped flowers make this one of the most elegant woodland perennials.

🌼 Garden Tip: A wonderful choice for shady gardens where many flowers struggle.

Sticky Willy

I bet you thought we made this one up.

We didn't.

Sticky Willy is one of the many common names for Cleavers (Galium aparine), a fast-growing wild plant covered with tiny hooked hairs that cling to clothing, fur, gardening gloves, and just about anything else that brushes past.

🌼 Garden Tip: Pull Sticky Willy while it's young. Those little hooks make it much easier to remove before it tangles itself through the rest of the garden.

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Stinkhorn

This unusual fungus earns its name honestly.

Its odor attracts flies, which help spread its spores.

Nature can be brilliant...

...and occasionally smell absolutely terrible.

🤯 Did You Know? Some Stinkhorns can grow several inches in a single day.

Stinking Hellebore

Don't let the name fool you.

The plant itself is beautiful, and the "stink" is only noticeable if the leaves are crushed.

🌼 Garden Tip: One of the earliest blooming perennials, bringing welcome color to late winter gardens.

T

Tickseed

Relax.

The name refers to the shape of the seeds—not because the plant attracts ticks.

Fortunately.

🦋 Nature Note: Tickseed (Coreopsis) is one of the easiest and most dependable pollinator-friendly perennials.

Touch-Me-Not

Touch the ripe seed pods...

...and they'll explode, launching seeds in every direction.

Yes.

The plant literally throws things at you.

🤯 Did You Know? This clever seed-launching strategy helps the plant spread naturally.

Turtlehead

Look closely at the blossoms and you'll immediately understand the name.

No turtles were interviewed during the naming process.

🦋 Nature Note: Turtlehead is the host plant for the beautiful Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly.

U

Umbrella Plant

Large glossy leaves spread outward like an umbrella, making this tropical favorite a popular houseplant around the world.

🌼 Garden Tip: Bright, indirect light will keep Umbrella Plants happiest.

V

Velvet Glove

Soft-looking blooms and velvety foliage give this plant its charming name.

Fortunately, no formal attire is required to grow it.

🦋 Nature Note: Many velvety flowers provide excellent nectar for bees and butterflies.

W

Witch Hazel

Long before it became a common ingredient in skin-care products, Witch Hazel was prized for its medicinal properties and its unusual habit of blooming when most other plants have gone dormant.

🤯 Did You Know? Despite its name, Witch Hazel has nothing to do with witches. The word "witch" comes from an old English word meaning to bend, referring to its flexible branches once used for water divining.

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Y

Yellow Archangel

With bright yellow flowers and attractive silver-marked leaves, this vigorous groundcover certainly earned its heavenly name.

🌼 Garden Tip: Plant carefully - it spreads enthusiastically in ideal conditions.

Z

Zebra Plant

Dark green leaves with bold white stripes make this tropical houseplant impossible to overlook.

🌼 Garden Tip: Zebra Plants appreciate humidity and bright, indirect light, making them excellent bathroom or kitchen companions.