Comments on: Mystery Plant

Question: Mystery Plant

Tknophobia — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:24:47 -0800

What kind of plant did we wind up with in our planter box?

So, a while back, FritoKAL and I got some seed packets to grow on our apartment patio. Sunflowers, some herbs, and the like. But now, a while later, we can't figure out what we grew in our planter box.

A picture for reference

The leaves feel very slightly fuzzy, if that helps narrow things down.

By: kalessin

kalessin — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:31:58 -0800

That looks like basil to me.

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:37:18 -0800

I am pretty sure it's not basil - I have a huge basil plant already, so I don't think I'd have gotten another set of basil seeds and it doesn't have the same sort of leaf structure as my basil plant. It's not growing up into stems / a planty shrub thing like my other basil plant, it's been those long singular leaves for weeks now.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:41:43 -0800

Looks quite a bit like coneflower to me: maybe Echinacea or Rudbeckia.

By: JayRwv

JayRwv — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:11:44 -0800

It is Sorrell

By: j.edwards

j.edwards — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:39:26 -0800

Agreed that it looks like sorrel. Bite a leaf (presumably your seed packet wasn't packed with poison) -- citrus-y, astringent tartness means sorrel. Good eatin'.

By: majortom1981

majortom1981 — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:55:25 -0800

I do not know what it is BUT here on long island your picture looks like what we have as weeds all over the place.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:30:07 -0800

I also think Echinacea. Maybe Rudbeckia.

By: annsunny

annsunny — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:46:37 -0800

I thought maybe a Gerbera daisy. Basil doesn't generally have fuzzy leaves, but there are lots of varieties out there. I would lean more toward jquinby's suggestion of some kind of coneflower.

There should be a master gardener available to consult the your local county extension services, if you are in the U.S.

By: onoclea

onoclea — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:15:02 -0800

I wonder if they could be Houndstongue plants, Cynoglossum officinale? I agree that the leaves look similar to Rudbeckia and Echinacea, but I think the veins on those seem a little different, while the veins on Houndstongue leaves look a bit more quilted like the ones in your picture. Houndstongue leaves are also very fuzzy. You can ID it up close better than we can - maybe these pictures or the links in this listing in the Plants database might help?

If that's what it is, unfortunately it's also a common weed so it could have easily fallen into your planter or been in your soil mix or seed packet. It's also a biennial, which means it grows basal leaves in the first year and then flowers and produces seeds in the second year. Many jurisdictions in the US & Canada consider it an invasive plant, so if it's Houndstongue you have, you might not want to let it go to seed.

By: grog

grog — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:41:12 -0800

Yes, it looks very much like the kind of thing that grows here in the northeast US when I haven't planted anything else, i.e. generic weeds (which might make sense if the seed packet used in that planter was a bust).

By: momus_window

momus_window — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:57:58 -0800

Spinach? Sometimes the leaves are skinnier than usual if they don't get much light. Agree with the suggestion to taste it.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:22:27 -0800

At this point in their very young lives, those plants are awfully hard to ID. I mean, they're definitely not cilantro or chamomile, but they could be dozens and dozens of things. Narrow it down based on seed packets purchased, and/or pluck a leaf and taste it for us?

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:47:33 -0800

It could be sorrell - I got a lot of packets of random herbs. We're working on the leaf-tasting (I'm at work, Techno is being mean and won't put a leaf in his mouth for me) (AND he won't pretend to be the Stunned Leaf-Eating Koala, he's so mean)

I don't think it's weeds - the box is pretty full of those same kinds of leaves, and it's a decent-sized window/flower box. I just can't remember what sort of seeds we put in there - though the coneflower sort of rings a bell.

The larger problem is neither of us can remember what seed packets we got, and the planting was sort of a "okay, well, I'll throw something into the flower box because the lavender didn't take" and it was very impromptu and random and I had a LOT of random seed packets lying around.