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Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Monday - January 18, 2010

From: Seguin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Seed and Plant Sources
Title: Resource for identifying winter rosettes or seedlings
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

Do you know of a good resource for identifying winter rosettes before bloom? I am interested primarily in hill country and blackland prairie.

ANSWER:

Here are a list of several databases with seedling photos:

1) Central Region Seedling ID Guide for Native Prairie Plants from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

2) Texas A&M University's Aggie Horticulture Wildflowers in Bloom has seedling photos with each individual species. Some of these are photos of non-native plants.

3) Wildseed Farms in Fredricksburg, Texas has seedling pictures with its individual species—click on the 'Options' link to see them.  Some of these are photos of non-native plants.

4) Native American Seed in Junction, Texas shows seedlings for some of the wildflower seeds it sells.

5) The WinterSown organization has Seedling Photo Gallery that contains some plants that occur in the Hill County of Texas.

6) University of Minnesota Extension has a Weed Seedling Photo Collection

7) The Seed Site, a British organization has a database of 700 photos of seedlings.  Unfortunately, they are mainly seedlings of European species.   

 

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