# What's that plant? An identification thread.



## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 17, 2011)

Did you find a plant growing and wonder what it is? Well, more heads are better than one, so this is a thread to post picture(s) of any mystery plant(s) one might have a yearning to learn more about, be it a cultivated or a wild specimen.
Pictures of leaves and flowers both are helpful. 

I'll kick it off with one that has me stumped. This may be a smaller example of a shrub, I think I noticed larger specimens, but I'd have to return to where I took it to be sure though. But maybe I won't need to if somebody recognizes it. I found it growing in the woods, the region is in the South-east, if that helps.

Reactions: Helpful 1


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## Bigboy (Jun 17, 2011)

maple leaved viburnum?


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 17, 2011)

Wow! That's it! How did you figure that out so quickly? I tried keying it using on-line resources, but hadn't had any luck.


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## Bigboy (Jun 18, 2011)

I'm pretty good with plants of the eastern US.


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## Galapoheros (Jun 18, 2011)

I found the ID to these once but I'm having a hard time now, anybody know.  I find them in central Texas along the side of the road now and then.  The bloom is like a white daisy.  VERY drought tolerant, I'm going to collect some seeds later.  I also found a patch of Eustoma exaltatum(lol, cut and paste), crazy for a wild flower around here.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 18, 2011)

Galapoheros, do any of these thumbnails match your flower? White Texas Wildflowers





Bigboy said:


> I'm pretty good with plants of the eastern US.


Cool. Wanna give this one a shot? It'll be a long shot maybe. The better picture I took, with the blossom, did not come out clearly enough to be useful, and this foliage shot was the only other one I took. I would imagine that returning to the place would find flowerless specimens at this point. Bad part is, I can't really remember what the flower looked like, I was more intrigued by the plant itself.


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## Galapoheros (Jun 18, 2011)

That thumbnail page helped me a lot!  I found it, Silphium albiflorum, White Rosin-weed, the name I remember is Compass plant.  I'm going to collect some seeds and put them in my back yard.  I like the smell of the oozing sap, it's one of those smells that takes me to an old place that I don't know if I've really ever been before, lol I know, sounds kind of weird.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 18, 2011)

Great, I'm glad it was useful. That was the reason I decided to create this thread, inspired by Moose's mystery flower thread.
Interestingly and coincidentally, among those thumbnails I just noticed a flower that I've been trying to pin down. The Rough Leaf Dogwood, I'll need to investigate a little further to see if it is an exact match, but even if it is not, it's putting me in the ball park.


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## Bigboy (Jun 18, 2011)

Tim Benzedrine said:


> Galapoheros, do any of these thumbnails match your flower? White Texas Wildflowers
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I want to say that's starflower.  Do they have 3-4 tiny white flowers on little stalks at the top of the plant?  I can't remember if they've flowered by now or not.  Deciduous forest right, in shaded under story, probably in the vicinity of some streams or other bodies of water?  Google _Trientalis borealis_ and let me know.  I thought I had one in my collection but I guess I've not collected one yet.  They're one of the cuter herbs in our forests.  I'm also partial to sarsaparilla and jack in the pulpit


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 18, 2011)

Well, that's a pretty accurate description of the location, there was a stream fairly nearby, and they were growing on the banks of a sort of ravine which would be a conduit of water during wet weather.
But, after googling, I'm not too sure if that's it. After I post this, I am gonna go back and see if any flowers remain and photograph them.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 18, 2011)

And I've returned from the quickie nature walk. As I feared, the blossoms were faded. But I took a better picture of the plant itself in the hopes of pinpointing the ID. Judging by the google images I looked at, I don't think it is _Trientalis borealis_.
   Also, just for fun, I snapped a mushroom, maybe a type of _Amanita _getting past it's prime.


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## Galapoheros (Jun 18, 2011)

Those blooms don't look like right for Trientalis pics I've seen, or are the bloom old and falling off?


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 18, 2011)

They are old and way past their prime. But when I looked thru images of them, I didn't have an ""a-ha!" moment. However, as I said, I did not pay too much attention to the flower before, so for all I know it could still be a match.


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## Bigboy (Jun 18, 2011)

Ahhhh okay okay, I needed to see the flowers.  I'm fairly certain its indian cucumber root.  That was frustrating lol.


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## moose35 (Jun 19, 2011)

your good at this......

i'll have to go out looking for plants just to test you.



moose


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 19, 2011)

Bigboy said:


> Ahhhh okay okay, I needed to see the flowers.  I'm fairly certain its indian cucumber root.  That was frustrating lol.


I googled the image for those. You got it! Great! Now I can label another photo! You will be the go-to guy in this thread, I believe.


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## Bigboy (Jun 19, 2011)

Tim Benzedrine said:


> I googled the image for those. You got it! Great! Now I can label another photo! You will be the go-to guy in this thread, I believe.


Hah, only if its an eastern plant with a range extending into New England.  I must admit I feel rusty.  A few years back I could name most plants around hereabouts from the common name up to the family level.  These days I just remember them if they were cute or usually catch my eye while hiking.

That cucumber root has an edible rhizome by the way.  Its protected and listed as endangered in some states though so I'm not sure how ethical eating it is.  BUT... its supposed to taste like a crisp cuke raw or lightly cooked.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jun 19, 2011)

Yeah, I made note of the fact they are edible. There are not a ton of them at the site I found them,  but there are enough there that I think they would survive the sacrifice of one rhizome if I decide to try one. Still, in light of their scarcity, I'll probably pass.
I wonder why they are so uncommon? It couldn't be from over-harvest, could it? I'm certain that isn't the case here.

I am pleased to have an ID on this one, especially since it turned out to be an interesting specimen.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Oct 7, 2011)

Calling Galapoheros! (or anybody else that wants to take a crack at it)

Any idea what this might be? Somebody suggested Virginia creeper, but this stuff doesn't seem to vine. It looks a little like pictures of ginseng that I've seen, but I don't think that is what it is. No berries, for one thing.


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## Galapoheros (Oct 8, 2011)

Oh I just got lucky with that other stuff.  That does look like V creeper at first glance(have a lot of it in my yard), but I don't know.  That'd be neat if it was Amer gensing.  I heard on the radio just yesterday that it is much more common than we are told through the media.  I think it was George Washington(?) that really liked to use it, somebody we've all heard about anyway.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Oct 8, 2011)

I wouldn't be too modest. i don't think I would have ever identified that Indian Cucumber Root.

I don't think it is Virginia Creeper, we have plenty of it and I have never seen it grow that way. But, honestly, I've never paid any attention to it's growth cycle, so maybe it IS creeper. There is certainly plenty of it around here.
The funny thing is, several years ago my sister gave me some ginseng starts to plant, she had bought them at a festival somewhere, knowing my interest in plants. I planted them and later the same sort of plant that I just posted came up. which thrilled me, until I noticed a few other specimens growing where I had planted no starters. So, either A)my ginseng had grown and in a pretty unlikely coincidence, I had chosen to plant them in a spot where there was already ginseng growing or B) Neither specimen was ginseng, my plants failed to grow and one of the mystery plants came up in that spot. The photo I posted was taken at another site, by the way.


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## Galapoheros (Oct 12, 2011)

Was it me that IDd that Indian Cucumber Root?  I remember commenting on but wasn't it somebody else that ID'd it?  I'd like to grow ginseng too.  I need to get out of the hill country, I'm living on a giant rock here with about 2 inches of dirt.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Oct 14, 2011)

Oops! Now that's embarrassing! It was Bigboy. I was in fact thrown off by remembering you commenting. I should have reviewed. Apologies to all parties!


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