Native Plants
Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?
A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
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Thursday - May 06, 2010
From: Toutle , WA
Region: Northwest
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Can you identify a funny looking bulb that I bought at the grocery store? Probably not..
Answered by: Jimmy Mills
QUESTION:
I looked through your data base and did not find what I was looking for. I bought this funny looking bulb at a grocery store. It looked like a giant shriveled spider when i bought them. Due to lack of care because of personal problems, they did not do well but one did come back this spring. It has 12-15 spear shaped leaves in a circle at the top of a stalk. The bud to the flower is about an inch long and has layers of green scales all the way to the top. I got rid of my personal problem and my house plants are flourishing and now am starting on my yard. Thanks for any help in identifying this strange but pretty plant.ANSWER:
Mr. Smarty Plants has found that it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify a plant from a written description regardless of how good the description is. I am going to offer two suggestions: one is to return to the store where you bought the bulb and see if they know what it is. The second is to go to our Plant Identification page and follow the instructions for sending us a photo of the plant. A picture is worth a thousand words.More Plant Identification Questions
Plant identification
November 18, 2007 - We were at some friends' ranch in Bandera Co. last week and found a plant with 1 inch pea-like pods of a matchstick girth with square black seeds. There were no leaves left only smooth green stems w...
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Plant identfication
April 06, 2009 - slow growing woody vine, yellow flowers, (grows butterfly shape leaves with seed in middle of it) in addition to the regular leaves.
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Identification of non-native Grape Hyacinth
April 13, 2013 - Mr Smarty Plants, can you tell me please, what is the name of the flower in the attached link? I see numerous references to it as blue bells or bluebells, but when I check the USDA Plants database, no...
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Dfferences between Argemone arizonica and other Argemones
October 27, 2005 - I am trying to find information about the differences
between the Argemone
arizonica which grows only in the Grand Canyon and the
other Argemones
which grow in the rest of the U.S. Do you have any...
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Identity of plant with purple flower and tomato-like fruit
April 24, 2012 - Along the Lake Erie shoreline in Buffalo there is a summer blooming plant with a purple flower and hard flattened tomato like fruit, diameter of a quarter. It has pretty small green leaves with fine ...
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