Well, thank you all. Let me clarify the picture (I'd take another but I left the camer aon all night and am currently recharging the batteries) The flower stalk in the forground in the main. To the right is the dried up old one. The flower started out of an odd formation that I just thought was a 'node' (the next section of the stalk). The stalk in the background that you can see the tip of is actually a branching lower on the stalk. The stalk directly behing the base of the root is a continuation of the original. This new baby is almost like a leach to that stalk. The 'flower' is from the center of the new leaves. One about 1.5 " while the other is just emerging. I never actually thought about how orchids produced offspring. I guess I just got quite the visual education. So.........wait till the second root comes out to about 2" and a few more leaves before gently removing it. I think I will wait until the flower stalk that continues on has finished flowering out. By that time perhaps spring will have made some sort of appearance and they can go out to the greenhouse. That is if I don't accidentally break it off first!! Done that a few times on one of my orchids, not once but 4 times did I break a stalk in 1 1/2 years and the silly thing keeps rewarding me with another one. Thank God I don't know enough about them to........well ignorance is bliss. Right? Dana

The Florida native incarnation of rudbeckia hirta is rudbeckia triloba, but it is definitely not that. Here is a close up of rudbeckia triloba...see how the flowers are rounder petaled and very small? They are only a bit over an inch wide. (Ignore the deformed ones in the center of the second photo...they are an aberration). Also, rudbeckia triloba and rudbeckia hirta both have large, coarse, hairy leaves. This looks like it has smallish, smoother leaves, if I'm picking out the correct ones from Felix's photo. Here's a pic I found online for beach sunflower. I can't say for sure, but it still looks way more like this than it does like rudbeckia triloba. Anyone else want to weigh in here? We need some opinions... Marcia

This exact thing is happening in my garden now! Three monstrous Fritillaria imperialis are poking up where I planted one (which yellowed and croaked at about half size without flowering last spring.) And it (or now "they") survived despite being watered all summer which Fritillaria is supposed to hate. Isn't this one of the reasons we love gardening? Are yours coming up this year, too?

Yardman, they do that. The first year I had the 2 larger ones in-ground and in a shelter, even though there was a lot of dieback on the older fronds, the spears continued to emerge. This past winter, in the protected greenhouse under cover and with CFC bulbs for warmth (the Arctictropical method in honor of our friend Kevin from Utah who is such an inspiration) several of the palms continued to grow, albeit slowly. Trachy fortuneii and waggies and even my Pindo.