Common or Latin Name

Botanical Family

Search tips & database capabilities

The text search engine resolves multiple botanical and common query formats:

Broad & Exact Matching: Search by a full botanical name (Acer palmatum), a broader genus (Acer), or common names.
Family-Level Discovery: Isolate entire botanical families (e.g., Rosaceae) to quickly find taxonomically related, climate-resilient alternatives.
Smart Synonym Resolution: Outdated taxonomy is automatically mapped to current accepted names (e.g., searching an old synonym will surface the newly accepted taxa).
Hybrid Formatting: Standard keyboard 'x' characters are automatically parsed as the botanical hybrid symbol (×). You can also use '+' to search for graft chimaeras.

1. Climate

About climate mapping

To make searching practical, SilvaGrid groups the bioclimatic zones from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) into five primary macro-climates:

Tropical: Equatorial and tropical zones defined by consistent year-round warmth. This encompasses the wet tropics, seasonally dry tropics, and cooler high-altitude montane tropics.
Subtropical: Warm transition zones between tropical and temperate regions, typically characterized by mild, largely frost-free winters. (Note: WCVP groups dry-summer Mediterranean climates within this broader biome).
Temperate: Mid-latitude climates defined by distinct seasonal shifts, including a true winter season where regular frosts and plant dormancy are expected.
Arid: Moisture-deficient climates—including true deserts and dry shrublands—where evaporation exceeds precipitation, requiring severe drought adaptations.
Cold: High-latitude subarctic or high-altitude subalpine climates defined by severe winters, prolonged freezing, and highly restricted growing seasons.

These categories denote a species' primary native environment and serve as a broad baseline for cultivation. While many adaptable plants can be successfully grown across multiple or adjacent zones (e.g., a subtropical species growing in a mild temperate microclimate), others are strictly limited to narrow sub-climates within their macro-zone. Local tolerances, such as frost hardiness or summer drought, always require verification prior to planting.

2. Plant Types

About plant types

Plant Types represent strict botanical lineages derived from WCVP morphology descriptions and taxonomy. This isolates "what a plant is" biologically.

Trees: True woody phanerophytes with a main trunk, explicitly excluding large herbaceous forms.
Shrubs: Woody or semi-woody branching plants, explicitly excluding herbaceous forms.
Climbers & Vines: Plants requiring physical support to establish a vertical green plane, including both herbaceous climbers and woody lianas.
Conifers: Mapped from seven distinct botanical families. This ancient evolutionary lineage includes both low-growing shrub and towering tree forms.
Palms: While true palms belong to a single family (Arecaceae), this category also includes cycads to match landscape design standards, encompassing both shrub and tree forms.
Ferns: Mapped from multiple distinct families, this non-flowering lineage ranges from low-growing groundcovers to tree ferns.
Grasses: Botanically encompasses true grasses, sedges, rushes, and restios mapped across four taxonomic families.
Bamboos: A distinct lineage of woody perennial grasses. Although they belong to the true grass family, they are categorized independently due to their unique structural form and scale.
Herbaceous Perennials: Non-woody plants living longer than two years. SilvaGrid uses a broad botanical definition (including evergreen tropical families and massive architectural herbaceous plants) rather than the commercial gardening usage.
Annuals: Herbaceous plants that naturally complete their entire life cycle within one or two years (this category also includes biennials).
Bulbs: Geophytes bearing underground storage organs, including true bulbs, corms, tubers, and rhizomes.
Cacti & Succulents: Plants with fleshy leaves or stems morphologically adapted for water storage to survive periods of drought or water scarcity.
Aquatics: Plants specifically adapted to grow in aquatic or permanently water-logged environments.
Air Plants: Epiphytes and lithophytes adapted to grow on the surface of other plants, structures, or rocks, deriving moisture and nutrients from the air.

4. Native range (WGSRPD)

Continent

Region

Botanical country

About WGSRPD mapping

SilvaGrid uses the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) to map plant origins. Unlike political ISO country codes, this system is a global botanical standard developed by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG).

Ecological Accuracy: WGSRPD boundaries are defined by floristic traditions and natural distribution patterns, rather than political borders, ensuring higher accuracy for ecological planning.
Scientific Consistency: This is the standardized framework used by global institutions like the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) to ensure reliable data comparison across the world.

(Note: While WGSRPD is our primary scientific standard, we plan to introduce political ISO country-level mapping in a future update to support traditional nursery and import/export workflows.)

Architectural plant geometry

Explore the World's Plant Palette.

Move beyond standard nursery lists. Filter more than 415,000 taxa by climate, plant type, and native range to discover new and underutilized species for design, planning, and plant research.

Built on structured botanical data.

Search 415,000+ Taxa

Access a globally recognized, authoritative scientific index of vascular plants, from widely used species to overlooked taxa.

Filter by Role and Plant Type

Narrow results by trees, shrubs, climbers, perennials, grasses, and more.

Map Native Range Precisely

Filter by continent, region, and botanical country using WGSRPD geography.

Cross-Reference Names and Synonyms

Match accepted names, outdated synonyms, and common names across the database.

Featured Plant Collections

Tropical Trees

Discover lush canopy species for warm, humid climates.

Arid Zone Shrubs

Water-wise understory plants native to arid environments.

Cold Climate Shrubs

Structural, frost-resilient woody plants for severe winter environments.

Temperate Perennials

Cold-hardy herbaceous plants for dynamic, multi-seasonal matrices.

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