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UPDATED! AND WE HAVE A WINNAH!
This little plant grows wild in the vegetation just behind the dunes on the Canaveral seashore. Some might call it a weed, but then, isn’t a weed just something growing where you don’t intend it to?
The leaves are green and serrated, resembling ivy. What makes this little plant eye-catching are the markings — the leaf part closest to the stem is a bright coral color. Do any of you know what this little plant is called?
UPDATE! Longtime radio show listener and Vermont snowbird Julie B ( “Truck!”) must have been a botanist in another life — or maybe a horticulturist. Or perhaps she just knows how to get the research done, because she identified what this little plant is. From my FaceBook page (where these blogposts also get posted), she wrote:
“It’s wild poinsettia
http://www.facebook.com/l/baa52/butterflies.heuristron.net/plants/poinsettia.html
How’s that for a Yankee, lol. I’ve been learning a lot about native Florida flora/fauna & snakes”
Thanks Julie! Here’s the scoop:
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It looks like some form of holly.
It is not a bayberry or a beach berry. (I checked.)
Holly, huh? Hmmm…. the cluster of tiny green “berries” or buds in the center have a yellow “fringelike” top. I think it must be flowers that haven’t yet bloomed. I brought some home and put them in a glass of water, and they’re thriving. No sign of roots yet.
Julie B at Facebook wrote: “I don’t know what it is but it looks interesting…kind of a cross between poinsettia & holly.”
Andrea, the minute I saw the picture I KNEW it was a poinsettia. My mother had one growing in her yard in northeast Tennessee. It was one that someone had given her and she actually threw it out into her “flower patch” because she thought it was dead. A few months later she realized it was not only NOT dead, it was THRIVING. It was still there when they sold their house in September of 2001. It really IS a pretty plant.
Thank you Dottie. I’m going to grow it as a planting. It’s a cheerful little thing!