What is this plant?

June 16, 2009 7:57 PM

My parents recently noticed a few strange plants sprouting up in the middle of their lawn. This one has grown from nothing to around a foot high in three weeks. Can anyone ID it? They're in the Boston area, if knowing the region helps.
posted by dfan to home & garden (7 comments total)

At first I thought Fritillaria imperialis, but no, probably not. Is it maybe a variety of eucomis? It doesn't look exactly like the one in the picture. I feel like I've seen something else similar; let me think about it.
posted by miss patrish at 9:09 PM on June 16

The plant in the picture is Eucomis autumnalis. Eucomis are also known as pineapple lilies. E. autumnalis is hardy to zone 7; Boston is in zone 7, so it's possible.
posted by miss patrish at 9:14 PM on June 16

It looks like a hyacinth, but they usually spread slowly like wild onions. Do their neighbors have hyacinths and do they see squirrels in the fall? I'm pretty sure that's a hyacinth. but I'd be surprised to just see one on the middle of my lawn.

If you can positive ID it as such, I'd just mow around it and move it in the fall because they're nice perennials and not likely to take over.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:58 PM on June 16

Well, crap, my link isn't working to the Eucomis picture and I can't figure out why. You can do an image search and find about a million examples, though. That being said, I don't think that's it. I'm fairly certain your plant is in the family Liliaceae, though, considering the look of the stems and leaves. I've run through most of the genera in Lilaceae googling ones I'm not familiar with, and haven't come up with anything. It looks like maybe the top part is getting ready to bloom; the bloom will help identify it, too. Looks like it's going to be multiple blooms along the stalk--an inflorescence!

I see the Mayor suggests hyacinths . . . hm. Just like Eucomis, hyacinths sport a basal rosette of leaves and the mystery plant doesn't so much, which is why I'm striking Eucomis as a possibility.

I hope someone else weighs in; now I'm dying to know!
posted by miss patrish at 10:20 PM on June 16

From my garden loving, plant-knowing wife:

"I'm not sure, since the top of the plant is out of focus. It look like some kind of lily. Tell dfan to try the Gardenweb forums. They even have a forum called Name That Plant to post mystery plants for others to ID: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/namegal/"
posted by bondcliff at 8:12 AM on June 17

Triffid?
posted by stumpyolegmcnoleg at 9:34 AM on June 17

Thanks for the replies. I tried Name That Plant on bondcliff's wife's suggestion and did get one response (which claimed it was a variety of orchid), although my mom was kind of dubious. We'll see what happens when it flowers!
posted by dfan at 7:32 PM on June 17