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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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Tuesday - September 02, 2008

From: kingston springs, TN
Region: Southeast
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Mystery Iris-like plant in Tennessee
Answered by: Joe Marcus

QUESTION:

What is this flower? It came up and bloomed for about five days then died. It was a beautiful white trumpet shaped flower. It had one stem with four flowers. It came up like an Iris but we nver planted this. After it died I noticed some olive sized seed-like nuts at the base of the flowers in the "head" of the flower. can I plant those? Sorry I didn't get a photo but it was gone with the first rain. Thank You

ANSWER:

Unfortunately, we cannot identify your plants from the description given.  Usually, however, we can identify mystery plants from good digital images.  If you can get some good, detailed pictures the next time it flowers, we will probably be able to help.

Please follow the instructions below to get help with a plant ID?

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

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

3. Save images in JPEG format.

4. Send email with images attached to [email protected]. Please enter Plant ID Request on the subject line of your email.

 

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