Host an Event Volunteer Join Tickets

Support the plant database you love!

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.

Help us grow by giving to the Plant Database Fund or by becoming a member

Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?

Share

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.

Search Smarty Plants
See a list of all Smarty Plants questions

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.

 
rate this answer
Not Yet Rated

Tuesday - September 04, 2012

From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: General Botany, Herbs/Forbs
Title: Petals on Black eyed Susans not developing from Austin
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

I just read Barbara Medfords response to undeveloped petals on perennial black eyed susans and was disappointed not to find a better explanation. I have had the exact same thing happen to mine, and I know insects, and watering were not the problem. The petalshmandsc brow just were not developing. Perhaps soil?? My plants were in Spicewood TX, near Pedernales river cliff.

ANSWER:

We think this is the previous answer to which you are referring.  That question was from Tennessee and was answered last year. We are sorry you were disappointed, but any time we give you an answer, we try to make sure that it is all we know and all we can find out from research. Could it be soil? That question was addressed in the previous question, also.

We always check to make sure a plant is native to the area in which it is being grown, because that is about the only way we have of knowing that it is growing in the right soils. This USDA Plant Profile Map shows that it is native to Llano and Mason counties, but not Travis; however, we don't think that is a significant factor.

Sometimes we just have to say we don't have a clue. Mr. Smarty Plants tries to find an answer to every question we get, but we simply can't outsmart Nature. Sometimes, weird things happen, and if we could solve every one of those questions we would be writing books and making a whole lot of money instead of working as volunteers. Obviously, the seeds from your plants are developing and doing their job, the pollinators are doing their job, the soil is acceptable, and that's about all we can tell you.

Please follow this plant link Rudbeckia hirta var. pulcherrima (Blackeyed susan) to our webpage on this plant and see if anything leaps out at you. Also, as we always do, you can scroll down that webpage to the Additional Resources, and click on the Google link to the plant, and see if you can find any research that we could not.

Just in case we had missed something, we took our own advice and went hunting on the Internet again. We found this article from Colorado State University Flower Management in a Dry Climate, on which Rudbeckia hirta var. pulcherrima (Blackeyed susan) is listed as a dry climate annual, but we still found no mention of deformed or missing petals.

 

From the Image Gallery


Black-eyed susan
Rudbeckia hirta var. pulcherrima

Black-eyed susan
Rudbeckia hirta var. pulcherrima

Black-eyed susan
Rudbeckia hirta var. pulcherrima

More General Botany Questions

Smarty Plants on science projects
October 24, 2005 - Hello, i am a 6th grade student at a middle school in GA. I am doing a science project and my question is, "Does music affect plant growth?" Is there a plant that would work best for me to experiment...
view the full question and answer

Effect of epsom salts and gray water on plants
December 04, 2007 - We live in Phoenix where water is a precious commodity. We have decided to use as much of the gray water as we can for watering our garden, shrubs and trees. One of the suggestions we heard about w...
view the full question and answer

Native New Jersey plants to remove iron water from Lawrenceville NJ
October 20, 2012 - Are there any native New Jersey plants that can remove iron water
view the full question and answer

Grafting stone fruit
April 02, 2009 - Do you know of anyone grafting the new low chill stone fruit trees to the Mexican plum to minimize cotton rot? Or would it even work?
view the full question and answer

What do cedars do to cause cedar fever?
February 20, 2009 - What do the native cedars in Fate Tx do in the winter that causes allergies to get really bad that they have named it cedar fever
view the full question and answer

Support the Wildflower Center by Donating Online or Becoming a Member today.