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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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Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.

 
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Sunday - August 10, 2014

From: Henderson, NV
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Identification, Vines
Title: Flowering vine with yellow flowers in Nevada
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

A flowering vine started growing in our Henderson back yard about 2 months ago. It has variegated green leaves & yellow flowers. We decided not to pull it out & now it's spreading. I've looked on various websites but can't determine if it's a weed. Can you help?

ANSWER:

Our focus and expertise are with plants native to North America.  Searching our Native Plant Database in a COMBINATION SEARCH selecting "Nevada" from the Select State or Province option and "Vine" from Habit (general appearance), I could find no natives vines with variegated leaves and there were only 4 species of vines native to Nevada with yellow flowers.  (You can try this search yourself.)  I suspect your vine is an escaped cultivar from someone else's garden.  If you have photos (or can take them), please visit our Plant Identification page to find links to several plant identification forums that accept photos of plants for identification.
 

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