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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Saturday - May 19, 2012

From: Albuquerque, NM
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Identity of rejuvenated plant
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

I am having trouble identifying my plant which has lived at least two years now, often looking completely dead, actually hibernating for a few weeks then bursting back to life. Small sprouts that grow with long stems with big green leaves with white spots which become too heavy for the long stems which fall over, bend, break, and die. I was going to dump it and put a cactus in it's place the 1st time he hibernated and discovered a bunch of bulbs with obviously healthy long roots on the bottoms of them. Put him back and business as usual. What is he? How do I care for him better?

ANSWER:

From your description it sounds as if your plant is/was growing in a pot and the description of the leaves do not bring any plant readily to mind nor is there enough detail to enable us to do a search in our Native Plant Database; therefore, I doubt that it is a North American native plant. And, since our focus and expertise here at the Wildflower Center are with plants native to North America, we aren't the ones to be asking about its identity or its care. Just in case you think it is a native plant, you could try doing a COMBINATION SEARCH in our Native Plant Database by choosing "New Mexico" in the Select State or Province and then selecting other appropriate criteria that fits your plant. You could then look at the photos of the plants on the resulting list. However, I think your best bet for learning the identity of this plant is the take photos and send them to one of the several plant identification forums that will accept photos of plants for identification. You can find links to these plant identification forums on our Plant Identification page.

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Saturday - May 19, 2012

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