About this puzzle
Gardeners, grandparents, and kids with a fistful of dandelions all have favorite flowers, so this list casts a wide net. It includes the classics of a spring border, like tulips and daffodils, summer showoffs such as dahlias and zinnias, a few flowers with a story behind them, like the poppy and the lotus, and four flower parts every young botanist should know: petal, stem, pollen, and nectar.
This flower word search makes a calm activity for a garden club meeting, a senior center afternoon, a Mother's Day card table, or a plant life cycle unit at school. The notes below are written by someone who likes digging in the dirt, with true details about where each flower comes from and why it looks the way it does. A few are worth knowing if you keep pets.
The 30 words in this puzzle
Every word, with a short note. Handy for teaching the vocabulary before or after solving.
In every version (12)
- Daffodil
- Daffodils belong to the genus Narcissus and bloom in early spring. Every part of the plant is poisonous if eaten, which is why deer and rodents leave them alone.
- Daisy
- The name daisy comes from the Old English for day's eye, because the flower opens at dawn and closes in the evening. Each daisy is really a cluster of many small flowers.
- Lavender
- Lavender belongs to the mint family. Its scent comes from oil made in tiny glands on the flowers and leaves, and bees visit it eagerly.
- Lily
- True lilies grow from bulbs and produce large, trumpet-shaped flowers. They are extremely toxic to cats; even a small amount of pollen can cause kidney failure.
- Orchid
- The orchid family is one of the largest groups of flowering plants, with tens of thousands of species. Vanilla flavoring comes from the seed pods of an orchid.
- Pansy
- A cool-weather favorite with markings that look like a little face. Its name comes from the French word pensee, meaning thought.
- Petal
- Petals attract pollinators with color and scent. Many have ultraviolet patterns, invisible to us but visible to bees, that point the way to the nectar.
- Poppy
- The red poppy became a symbol of remembrance for soldiers after the World War I poem In Flanders Fields. Poppy seeds sprinkled on bagels come from a different species.
- Rose
- Roses have hundreds of wild species and thousands of garden varieties. Their sharp points are technically prickles, outgrowths of the stem's outer layer, rather than true thorns.
- Sunflower
- A sunflower head is made of hundreds of tiny flowers called florets packed together. Young sunflower plants turn to follow the sun, while mature heads mostly face east.
- Tulip
- Tulips grow wild in Central Asia and became treasured in the Ottoman Empire. In the 1630s, prices for rare tulip bulbs in the Netherlands soared in a craze called tulip mania.
- Violet
- Small purple, blue, or white flowers that often pop up in lawns in spring. The violet is the state flower of Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
Added in Medium and Hard (8)
- Bluebell
- English bluebells carpet woodlands in spring with nodding, bell-shaped blue flowers. Wild bluebells are protected by law in the United Kingdom.
- Carnation
- Carnations last a long time after cutting, which makes them a florist favorite. Anna Jarvis, who founded Mother's Day in the US, chose the white carnation as its symbol.
- Iris
- The iris is named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow, a nod to its many colors. Many historians believe the French fleur-de-lis is a stylized iris.
- Lilac
- A shrub covered in sweet-smelling clusters of purple, lavender, or white flowers in late spring. The purple lilac is the state flower of New Hampshire.
- Marigold
- Garden marigolds are native to Mexico and Central America. Their bright orange blooms are used to decorate altars during Day of the Dead celebrations.
- Peony
- A well-placed peony plant can bloom for decades. Ants often crawl on the buds to sip sugary nectar, but peonies open just fine without them.
- Pollen
- Pollen grains carry the male cells a flower needs to make seeds. Wind, bees, butterflies, birds, and even bats move pollen from flower to flower.
- Stem
- The stem holds a flower up toward the sunlight and carries water and nutrients from the roots to the leaves and petals through tiny tubes.
Added in Hard (10)
- Dahlia
- Dahlias are native to Mexico and are its national flower. They grow from tubers, and blooms range from coin-sized pompoms to heads as big as a dinner plate.
- Forget Me Not
- Tiny sky-blue flowers with yellow centers that often grow in shady, damp spots. The alpine forget-me-not is the state flower of Alaska.
- Hibiscus
- Hibiscus flowers are large and trumpet-shaped, often lasting only a day each. A yellow hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii, and dried petals of one species make a tart red tea.
- Hydrangea
- A shrub with huge, rounded flower clusters. In bigleaf hydrangeas, the soil changes the color: acidic soil tends to make blue flowers, and less acidic soil makes pink ones.
- Lotus
- Lotus leaves are covered in microscopic bumps that make water bead up and roll off, carrying dirt away. Lotus seeds have sprouted after being stored for centuries.
- Magnolia
- Magnolias belong to an ancient line of flowering plants that evolved before bees existed. Their tough flowers are mainly pollinated by beetles.
- Nectar
- A sugary liquid that flowers make to attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Honeybees carry nectar back to the hive and turn it into honey.
- Petunia
- A popular summer flower for pots and hanging baskets. Petunias come from South America and belong to the same plant family as tomatoes and potatoes.
- Snapdragon
- Gently squeeze the sides of a snapdragon flower and it opens and closes like a little dragon's mouth. Heavy bumblebees are strong enough to push their way inside.
- Zinnia
- Zinnias are easy-to-grow annuals from Mexico that butterflies love. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station grew zinnias in 2016 as part of a plant experiment.
A few facts to share while you solve
- Rafflesia arnoldii produces the largest single flower in the world, up to about three feet across, and it smells like rotting meat to attract flies.
- The seeds in a sunflower head grow in two sets of spirals, and the numbers of spirals are usually neighboring Fibonacci numbers such as 34 and 55.
- When you eat broccoli, you are eating a cluster of unopened flower buds.
Four versions of this puzzle
Pick a version with the buttons above the grid. Each one has its own grid and answer key, and your progress on each is saved separately in this browser.
| Version | Words | Grid | Directions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 12 | 11 × 11 | The 12 most familiar words, reading forward across and down. |
| Medium | 20 | 14 × 14 | Twenty words across, down and diagonally. No backwards words. |
| Hard | 30 | 16 × 16 | Every word, in all eight directions including backwards, with look-alike filler letters. |
| Large print | 12 | 10 × 10 | The 12 most familiar words on a small grid with big letters. No backwards words. |
Hard and large print versions
Hard flower word search: all 30 words on a 16 × 16 grid, hidden forward, backward, up, down and along both diagonals, with filler letters borrowed from the word list. Print it without the word list for an extra challenge. Play the hard version, or see all hard word searches.
Large print flower word search: the 12 most familiar words on a 10 × 10 grid, printed with big letters and a big word list, and no backwards words. Play the large print version, or see all large print word searches.
Printing this word search
Press Print / PDF above the puzzle. You get a clean one-page sheet with the title, the grid, a word list with tick boxes, and optional name and date lines. The answer key prints on a second page. Prefer a file? Download it as a PDF or an image to print later or drop into a worksheet. Whatever version is showing on screen is the one that prints, and the large print version prints with bigger letters.
How to play online
- Find a word from the list in the grid. Scanning for its first letter is the quickest way.
- Drag across the word from its first letter to its last. On a phone, you can also tap the first letter, then the last.
- Found words get highlighted and crossed off. Stuck? Hint circles the first letter of a word you haven’t found.
Read the full guide to solving word searches, with tips that make big grids much faster.
Questions and answers
Which flowers in this puzzle grow from bulbs?
Tulips, daffodils, and lilies all grow from bulbs, which are planted in fall for spring or summer blooms. Dahlias grow from tubers that are usually dug up in cold climates each winter. Many garden irises, especially bearded irises, grow from thick underground stems called rhizomes.
Is this flower word search good for Mother's Day or spring?
Yes, it works for both. Pair it with a card-making table for Mother's Day, since carnations are the holiday's traditional flower, or use it during a spring planting unit. The words Petal, Pollen, and Nectar connect easily to lessons on how flowers make seeds.
Is there an answer key for this flower word search?
Yes. Choose Print / PDF above the puzzle and keep “Add an answer key page” ticked. The key prints on its own page, with every word highlighted. While playing online, Show answers outlines any words you haven’t found yet.
Can I print copies for my class or group?
Yes. Every puzzle on BetterWordSearch is free to print for personal, classroom, library and homeschool use. Print as many copies as you need. To change the words or make several different versions of the grid, use the word search maker.
What changes between Easy, Medium, Hard and Large print?
Easy hides the 12 most familiar words, reading left to right and top to bottom. Medium uses 20 words and adds diagonals. Hard hides all 30 words in every direction, including backwards, with look-alike filler letters. Large print uses the same words as Easy on a small grid and prints with big letters.
