A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Mystery Plants? Strange plant

Thanks to all of you for the help in figuring out how to add pics. I appreciate your time and efforts. :)

I have 2 pics of a strange plant that came up next to a ditch by my house. I've lived here 23 years and have never seen such a thing. I'm assuming it came from a packet of wildflower seeds that I planted in that area last year that didn't do much at the time and didn't come back this year unless this plant is one of them.

I'm new to including pics and will do my best to get this right. :)

The center spike is about 3ft. tall. Branches go out from the bottom all the way around. Plant is approximately 5 feet in diameter. No flowers or buds for flowers that I can see.

[img][IMG]http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn144/kwgrid/Weirdplant2.jpg[/img][/img]



Thanks in advance for your help.

Don't think we're ignoring your ?. I'm sure someone is hot on the trail of an answer. I don't have any idea what that thing is but it doesn't look like a wild flower. Are the stems sturdy or flimsy?

That is an unusual looking plant. It looks like it could be a campanula of some type. My chimney bellflowers grew very similarly.

The rose campion grows in a similar pattern but the texture is so different.

I never seen it before......If it is campanula, I will see one this summer .. I Planted some seed.
It is cute ........give it time to show .. Keep it tho.
Nice.

no idea what that might be. looks very happy and healthy thou.....I'd say it was a keeper!

could it be some sort of spurge?

Yup Kenny, I'm thinking the same thing.

Don't get the sap on your skin(from broken stems), it's extremely irritating.

eekkkkkkkkk

The stems are sturdy. Freaky, huh?

I will definitely leave it alone and see if it ever has flowers. It's very unusual and worth allowing it to live. I gave it some Miracle Gro a few days ago and crossed my fingers that it wouldn't hurt it in any way. It seems to be fine so at least it didn't kill it.

Thanks to all for the suggestions on campanula and spurge. Will dig around and see what I can find about those.

I searched on spurge and campanula and can't find anything in those categories that looks like this plant. Maybe it will have some kind of blooms after a while and that will help pin this down. If it came from the wildflower seeds, it should do something eventually. :)

Will return with more photos if/when it blooms.

Kalar,, can you get a close up of the stalk and leaves??? I used to have a site bookmarked that shows plant/flower growth habits with the leaves of the plants with ID's ,, maybe it would help ID it????

I don't have a good camera for closeups. I used one of those one-time use cameras to get the pics I did get. I've discovered that trying to do closeups doesn't work well with those cameras. Everything blurs. I may bite the bullet and get a decent camera.

BTW, I was looking at that plant yesterday and felt the leaves and realized that they are quite soft. They don't have an obvious fuzz on them but the texture of the leaves is very much like a soft cloth....almost velvety but not visually.

Mystery solved!!!

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/pictures/p10/pages/oenothera-biennis-3.htm

My mystery plant is a primrose of the family oenothera biennnis. The link shows a picture of the whole plant with blooms. Mine hasn't bloomed yet. It looks like I have something to look forward to.

I contacted my local agricultural extension agent and he knows the plant expert at Mississippi State University. He forwarded the pictures and I received a reply this morning. At first I thought he was wrong because when I used his information to search the web about it and the dimensions and structure did not sound like my plant. More searching came up with the picture at the link above.

Woohoo!!!

Ok, I have those here, also from a former pack of wildflower seeds. They reseed like crazy and I work like crazy trying to pull them out of areas where they are not welcome. They are nice in outlying waste areas but.....

Oh ................I have that one too.......Pain in the bellfries.

If it is mine.. It only blooms at nite..Who wants to run outside at nite and see it???????Unless you have garden parties.LOL

here the skitters would eat you up to look at one at night

Oh I thought they were only in Penna....
Down by my inlaws, they are next to a creek and skeeters and hornets galore.

b

Oh, that's just great. Now I have something ELSE that might "take over" just when I thought I had rid my yard of prolific Canna Lilys!!!

I read that the Primrose seed can stay viable in the ground for 70 years!! It also said that my particular 'flavor' of primrose can get 8 feet tall!!

Good grief, Charlie Brown!!

P. S. As for "who's gonna go outside in the dark to see them bloom": Some people create "Moon Gardens" with white and light-colored plants and flowers and plants with variegated leaves all of which show well at night in the moonlight. :)

Sounds nice.......
Hd doesnt like nite walks......I do.......

Right now it is nite colds.

b

I have evening primrose too but I don't remember it looking like that when it started. It does look like the picture on the website though.

Mine blooms in the evening, not the dark.

Same here.....The first photo seemed too perfect ......to be primrose.

????????????

Well see if it blooms.

Yep, the ones here hover around 6 ft in the watered areas. I'm desert here and the unwatered volunteer ones only get around 4 ft. I like them out in the unimproved areas. I just don't want them in the flower beds. And end of season they turn a nasty straw brownish color.

If/when this huge thing blooms, I will definitely follow up with some pictures.

Fortunately, the place I threw the wildflower seeds last year are outside the main part of my back yard in an area that I didn't want to plant something that needed "tending to" because I would have to go outside the fence and down the ditch. So I opted to try some wildflowers just for fun to see if it would put a little color in that area. That was last year and nothing happened so I just assumed the dirt was bad or the seeds weren't any good. Who knew I would get this giant plant (actually there is a another much smaller one coming up a little further back up the ditch)blocking the area where I usually mow. The smaller one isn't blocking anything....yet. har

After it turns that "nasty straw brownish color" I'm gonna mow it down. If it comes back next year that's fine. If not, that's fine, too. lol I'll have pictures if I want to revisit it. ha

Don't panic.....
It could just be mom nature pullin tricks on you....
Remember.Its not nice to fool mother nature>>>>>>>>