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 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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Saturday - December 20, 2014

From: Santa Fe, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Identification, Wildflowers
Title: Identification of seedlings
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

So..last spring I spread out a bag of random Texas wildflower seed I bought at Home Depot. Bautiful things happened. Since that time I've collected seeds while out camping etc and just been chunking them in the garden patch.. All of a sudden I have a gazillion little seedlings popping up (all the same) and I can't figure out what they might be. I took a picture.. can I send it to you somewhere? Just want to know if it is something that will flower or if I should pull it all out.

ANSWER:

Sorry, but we don't accept photos for plant identification anymore. We did this for a short time but soon we were inundated with photos and didn't have enough staff or volunteers to handle them all and continue answering our Mr. Smarty Plants' questions, too.

Seedilings can be difficult to identify, but if you remember the names of the wildflowers that you planted, you might be able to find photos of some of the seedlings. For instance, if you had bluebonnets, on the Lupinus texensis (Texas bluebonnet) page in the Images Gallery you will find several photos of seedlings. There are seedling photos on the Rudbeckia hirta (Black-eyed susan) Image Gallery page also. If you know the names of your wildflowers you can look in our Image Gallery to see if there are photos of seedlings there.

Here are some webpages that can help you find your seedlings:

Aggie Horitculture (Texas A&M) has a website Wildflowers in Bloom with seedling photos.

Central Region Seedling ID Guide for Native Prairie Plants from the National Resources Conservation Service has seedling photos.

Seedlings website of British plants also contains some North American wildflowers seedling photos.

You can also visit our Plant Identification page to find links to several plant identification forums that will accept photos of plants for identification.

From the Image Gallery

Texas bluebonnet
Lupinus texensis

Black-eyed susan
Rudbeckia hirta