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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Wednesday - July 30, 2008

From: Baton Rouge, LA
Region: Southeast
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: How to have Mimosa and Yucca identified.
Answered by: Joe Marcus

QUESTION:

Hello, I have recently come across what I believe to be Mimosa microphylla in a very southwest corner of Mississippi. The only thing different about this patch is its brilliant white blooms! I can not find a single picture online of any species of 'sensitive plant' that has a white bloom. Also closer to your neck of the woods out in Llano, TX I have found two variegated Yucca constrictas in a field of non-mutants. My question is how do I go about getting these plants identified & getting a well suited latin name to them? Thanks for your help.

ANSWER:

Mr. Smarty Plants will be happy to help you with your plant identification. Here are modified instructions for submitting digital images of plants for ID from the Mr. Smarty Plants homepage:

1. Tell us where and when you found the plant and describe the site where it occurred.

2. Take several images including details of leaves, stems, flowers, fruit, and the overall plant.

3. Save images in JPEG format, at as high a resolution as possible, but still under 10MB total size of the attached images. Attachements exceeding 10MB will be stopped by our security system.