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Tennessee Gardening

Is there a plant named 'The Mystery Plant' ?

18 years ago

I was talking to a co-worker yesterday and he was telling me about a plant in his yard that he had planted around a cedar tree. He said it loved acidic soil. In the summer, a single stalk rises from the center of the plant. At the top of the stalk is a flower. He said the name of the plant was the Mystery Plant.

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Comments (5)

Soeur
18 years ago
Yeah, it's that one that folks don't know the name of. :)

Seriously, no, there isn't a plant with the official name of Mystery Plant. You see monikers like that tacked onto ordinary plants in those cheap Sunday supplements and low-end garden catalogs to entice naive gardeners. And sometimes people just attach a "name" like that to a plant cuz they don't know the real name, and then pass it along.

Although many folks have an aversion to scientific names, this is why they exist. Common names are all over the map, and are often unhelpful in telling you what plant you've got.

Get a little more info from the guy, anything he can remember about the plant such as plant habit (e.g. bushy and clumping? running like a groundcover? etc), height, leaf shape (e.g. strap-like? heart-shaped? etc) and arrangement (e.g. rosette? growing off the stems? etc) and flower shape (e.g. daisy-like, petunia-like, etc), bloom arrangement (e.g. in a flat-topped cluster? single bloom? in a spike? etc) and flower color. With that info we could take a good whack at getting an ID.

Marty
big_orange_vol_
18 years ago
Most everyting in our yard is a mystery plant to me! I need to have Dr. Renee or Marty come over to I.D. our stuff.

I will ALWAYS defer to Marty's superior intellect but I think that usually folks are refering to either Lycoris or Crinum lilies with that tag but there are so many common names for stuff it's silly. Magic Lily, Resurection Lily, Surprise Lily, Naked Lady, blah, blah, blah,.................

Whatcha think Marty?
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Soeur
18 years ago
Well, it's as good a guess as any. I haven't heard Lycoris squamigera called Mystery Plant before, but, as you point out, it has a passle of common names that sort of fall into that category.

Marty
smferguson
Original Author
18 years ago
That's it! Thanks guys!
jgwoodard
18 years ago
Now that's interesting! I thought it was a joke when I read the thread title. I'm lazy so I usually only know the scientific names. It is interesting how some stick and some don't. I mean, who calls epimediums "horny goat weed" or "barrenwort"? Also it's tough to find what you're looking for without a universal system. I've seen some online catalogs arranged by common name. It's like a maze.

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