Your Letters 2 Report post Posted June 24, 2016 Hello! A friend recommended your website as a wonderful resource for helping identify plants, so I'm wondering if you would be so kind as to help me out with two thriving, happy plants that appeared in my garden and that I've let grow........although I am quite suspicious :-)! I would so appreciate advice!!! Here are a few pictures of the first one.... And the second mystery plant... Thanks for any help! - D.S. - Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Janet Macunovich 32 Report post Posted June 24, 2016 Hmm. The first looks like a Rudbeckia - one of the many species with the word "coneflower" in the common name. Blackeye Susan is very commonly grown but this looks more like sweet coneflower, Rudbeckia subtomentosa, native to a big chunk of the center of North America (map and more info at the USDA's fine site, http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RUSU) As a native, sweet coneflower may have just found its way into a garden with the birds. But yours has hairy stems... more like other natives/garden flowers: the brown eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida) or thin-leaf coneflower (Rudbeckia triloba). So maybe it's ahybrid. If it's a Rudbeckia it should be developing flower buds any time and then the flower will be a more sure identification feature. Your second plant. Thinking hard. The leaf looks like Virginia waterleaf but it wouldn't be on an upight stem like that. It looks SOOOOO familiar. Any help out there? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Janet Macunovich 32 Report post Posted June 24, 2016 Lettuce, that's what it reminds me of. One of the wild lettuces -- there are quite a few. If you break a stem or leaf, is there a milky sap? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
debjam 0 Report post Posted June 25, 2016 Re: The second "mystery plant" ......I think I finally found it - Prenanthes Altissima - Tall Snakeroot - also called White Lettuce. Habitat fits, milky sap fits, now I'll await the flowers to seal the deal. Thanks so much again for pointing me in the right direction! This group is known for highly variable leaves - makes for interesting identification challenges! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Your Letters 2 Report post Posted September 4, 2016 About a month or so ago I sent photos of a mystery plant that we all agreed was a Rudbeckia of some sort, but what sort? Well they FINALLY bloomed, and I promised to send along the picture. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Janet Macunovich 32 Report post Posted September 4, 2016 Ah! Almost certainly that's brown-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia triloba. It's native all over eastern North America* and is also sold with other summer perennials, so can appear on its own in almost any garden. It's biennial or a short-lived perennial but most people who cultivate it never know it comes and goes, since new seedlings are always coming to augment wintered-over plants. It's not alone among perennials in having a different shape to the basal leaf than to the leaf that grows on the flower stalk... *If you haven't ever checked out the USDA's plant finder, you should. Go to their site and type in the plant you wonder about, common- or scientific name. The info page, along with where-it's-native in North America map pops up. (Sometimes in between entering the name and getting to the info page you get to choose between multiple listings for the plant in all its sub-species.) plants/usda.gov This plant is at http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RUTR2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JarvJ4mes 0 Report post Posted January 19, 2017 Ah! Almost certainly that's brown-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia triloba. It's native all over eastern North America* and is also sold with other summer perennials, so can appear on its own in almost any garden. It's biennial or a short-lived perennial but most people who cultivate it never know it comes and goes, since new seedlings are always coming to augment wintered-over plants. It's not alone among perennials in having a different shape to the basal leaf than to the leaf that grows on the flower stalk... *If you haven't ever checked out the USDA's plant finder, you should. Go to their site and type in the plant you wonder about, common- or scientific name. The info page, along with where-it's-native in North America map pops up. (Sometimes in between entering the name and getting to the info page you get to choose between multiple listings for the plant in all its sub-species.) plants/usda.gov This plant is at http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RUTR2 Wow. Thank you for your insight Janet! I just wanted to say I learned a lot Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
