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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 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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Wednesday - August 12, 2015

From: Bellevue, WA
Region: Northwest
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Identification of flower in book
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

Hi, I make paper flowers and I came across this flower in my book under the name camellia. But I am sure it is not. I tried finding out similar flowers but i am lost as I don't know if such a flower even exists. Can you please identify

ANSWER:

If you tried to attach a photo or drawing to your question, we are sorry but that is not possible.  Since we don't have any sort of description of the flower except that it isn't a camellia, we can't really help you.  Also, since our expertise and focus are with plants native to North America and camellias are cultivated plants with origins in Asia, we wouldn't be likely to be able to help you anyway.  You might be able to learn its identity by taking your book to a longstanding commerical nursery or flower shop in you area.  Another possibility is if the flower illustration is a photograph and you can scan the photo, you could submit it for identification to one of the plant identification forums that we have listed on our Plant Identification page.

 

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