Beverly, the petals on my plant overlapped with no spaces between. Your photos look exactly like the plant I had only mine grew to @ 5 feet in height and no fragrance in leaves or blooms. I sure wish I hadn't taken them out as it was very pretty but we have so many invasive plants here in Florida and when someone told me it was invasive I immediately pulled them out! I will watch in hopes that you are able to find an exact ID!!

I searched for "Turnera seed for sale Florida" and found this:

WARNING: Nearly every online source of seeds are selling the seeds of Turnera ulmifolia. If the photos don’t match this one then its all false

http://massspectrumbotanicals....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

The prices indicate a bulk seller. Read all the write up under Product Description! This seller is intending on having the true "Damiana" later this year.

There is only one true Damiana species, and although there is the potential for it to have varieties / cultivars (like any other species) anything that strikingly resemble T. ulmifolia is very unlikely to be one of them.

Well super Lin...now we will have some photos for the database if we ever discover the identity It is a beautiful plant with those lovely year around flowers and rich deep green leaves. Where you live you will have Mexican Fritillary butterflies and they will have munched on all the spectacular leaves so if you don't like half eaten leaves you may have wanted to get rid of it anyway. Because i have a butterfly garden specifically for providing habitat for butterlies and moths (plus nectar for the bees and hummers), i am always happy to see munch marks in the leaves of my plants. I call the caterpillars "my little pruners"...they will starve before they will kill their food source (with a few moth exceptions). They eat economically and the plants are encouraged to regrow quickly. This is one reason why my plant did not become 5 feet tall and the other reason was because it was growing in a container. Butterfly gardens are by nature rag-tag and i don't expect many of the photos of them appear in the "beautiful garden magazines."

As for being invasive, i grew my plant in a large container on the stone patio. Which is one way i kept it from being invasive. The roots are not a problem but the plant does produce an awe-inspiring number of seeds. The seeds however are not the exploding kind and most of the seeds i either kept to share or easily swept up from the stone patio pavers. Here in the tropics, just about every plant is invasive so we don't make much of a fuss about it. The plants seem to get things sorted out amongst themselves.

I found a photo of Turnera ulmifolia on a Florida Native Plant site, the centre does have the 'crown' but others don't, maybe they do have both types as I linked to examples with both above. The petals overlap! The icon shown means it's non native to Florida. I guess it's as reliable as any other and variations could be due to self seeding from hybrids derived from the species which could be man made or natural.

http://www.floridanativeplants...

An interesting write up ..

http://keysnews.com/node/22170

The likeness to Elm leaves ..

http://www.uniprot.org/taxonom...

Lin, I would leave your photos where they are, this plant is well established in Florida.

Beverly, We have the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly: http://www.butterfliesandmoths... here in Florida which is similar to your Mexican Fritillary: http://www.butterfliesandmoths... but the Mexican Frit apparently doesn't make it this far north.

Here in Florida we have many non-native invasive (or potentially invasive) species that are slowly killing out the native plants and animals. The large Cuban Tree Frogs eat our native smaller tree frogs and lizards. It's been reported that the cuban tree frog will eat anything it can fit into its mouth, LOL. Some non-native plants are of concern because they have the ability to become invasive, disrupting the natural habitat of natives and it always bothers me when I see some of the more invasive varieties of plants being sold at local garden centers. We once had Southern Sword Fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia) as well as Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis) that began taking over our backyard and they were both extremely difficult to near impossible control. The Brazilian Pepper Tree (Schinus terebinthifolia) has become extremely invasive here and has killed out many native plants. Melaleuca trees are very fast growing and have completely taken over thousands of acres in the Florida Everglades by forming dense forests and displacing native plants and trees. It's just sad to hear of plants and animals becoming extinct due to our human error.


Janet, My photos were already deleted from the database but I can easily find them on my computer and re-upload them when/if we can determine the true identity.

Lin, I am very surprised to hear that the nurseries in Florida sell invasive plants. This can't be legal can it?

The Gulf Fritillary is larger and has different colorations than the Mexican Fritillary. I think maybe it was a person in southwest Texas that hosted Mexican Fritillaries...I have a tendency to think that what is in SW Texas is also in S Florida and i know i really need to get out of the habit of making that assumption. The caterpillars are similar though. In fact not long after my Turnera (whatever sp) had grown to maturity, i found a small caterpillar wandering around on the ground. It was clearly not looking for a place to pupate. I thought it was a Gulf Frit and tried to put it back on the Passiflora, but it wasn't having anything to do with that plant. So i tried putting it on the Turnera and immediately it started chomping away. This is when i discovered my first brood of Mexican Frits...it was so exciting.

I have started working on the ID on our Turnera. Specifically, i have found written descriptions from good sources that detail the characteristics of the ulmifolia. So i think i am getting close. It is very possibly umifolia but i need collaborating scientific descriptions which i expect to find. I hope to have an answer in a couple of days. Then i will send to you and to @JRsbugs the links that i found convincing and if you both agree to the conclusion, then i think that is solid enough to proceed to add or not to add...that is the question How does that sound to you?

Beverly, I think some of the big box stores like Walmart and Home Depot etc. get their plants from wholesale growers in the southern part of Florida and one that I see for sale quite often is Mexican Petunia (Ruellia simplex) which is listed as a Category I non-native invasive here in Florida but is grown as an annual in other parts of the U.S.A.

I really appreciate all the work that you and Janet are doing trying to find the true identity of that Turnera plant. Yours looks exactly like the one that appeared in my yard; likely a gift from the birds!

Looks just like the Turnera ulmifolia which is a weed in Hawai'i.

http://www.starrenvironmental....

http://ntsavanna.com/elm-leave...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Thanks for weighing in Metro and for the links...i just need one or two more scientific references for convincing myself. And i need to review other photos that i took of this plant and count some plant parts. Right now, i too think it is ulmifolia but i need to do a little more work before i am comfortable with putting it in the database as such. I should be able to put together something in a couple of days, right now i'm short on time.

Dave, you may have been the one that identified my plant for me! This was my plant that looked exactly like those in Beverly's pictures:


I deleted my photos from the ATP database because the flower petals on my plant weren't separated like this database photo of bamira's:

I think these are hybrids of T. ulmifolia, crossed with other Turnera species, or part of a complex of species included under the umbrella of T. ulmifolia. There's apparently been a lot of research going on in hybridisation of the yellow flowered Turnera.

Turnera is the largest genus in the family Turneraceae.The genus contains 120 species distributed in America and 2 species in Africa (Arbo 2005). Urban (1883) divided the genus into 9 series, Annulares, Anomalae, Capitatae, Leio-carpae, Microphyllae, Papilliferae, Salicifoliae, Stenodic-tyae, and Turnera (=Canaligerae).

The subseries Turnera is composed of 20 species distrib-uted from southern USA to central Argentina (Arbo 1986);

Some artificial interspecific hybrids that resulted from crossing T. grandiflora with other species of the T. ulmifolia complex were studied by Ferna´ndez and Arbo (1993b, 2000b).

http://www.academia.edu/435748...

There's a photo of T. grandiflora on kew which shows the stigma, which I think is being called the crown. It has overlapping petals too, it could be part of the parentage.

http://www.kew.org/science/tro...

A pdf about the breeding systems in the Turnera ulmifolia complex...

Deviation from expected compatibility behaviour occurs in populations of var. angustifolia that have the longest styles

http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/ba...

Hi Lin, I may have ID'd the plant.

As the plant is very widespread, the flower & leaf form, and size of the plant change from place to place. In Hawai'i the leaves may be wider or thinner, flower petals may or may not overlap a bit, all on wild plants.
The flowers must contain 5 sepals, 5 petals, and 5 stamens.

The characters in this link help to ID the species.

http://ntsavanna.com/elm-leave...

The following two sites have descriptions of Turnera ulmifolia (scroll down for the description at the ajaytaobotanical site) that are in agreement as to the characteristics of this plant.

https://ajaytaobotanicalblog.w...
http://www.floridanativeplants...

The site below, massspectrum botanicals, is a commercial site but credible about Turnera ulmifolia being sold in Florida (and probably other places) identified as Turnera diffusa. It is credible because i discovered this first hand. The photos i posted at the beginning of this thread were sold to me in 2011(by a seller in Florida...i still have the receipt!) and identified as Turnera diffusa (aka Damiana) but i have come to realize that the seeds i received were from and yielded Turnera ulmifolia.

This site also as a photo of Turnera diffusa and a photo of Turnera ulmifolia that provide good photo comparisons of the two that is backed up on the internet at various sites both commercial and scientific.

http://massspectrumbotanicals....

Previous sites noted in this thread by @JRsbugs indicate that Turnera ulmifolia is an umbrella of the "ulmifolia complex" and clearly describe how the characteristics of T. ulmifolia came to be variable in different parts of the world. Some variations have been named based on cellular and chromosome information but the variations do not translate (at least not yet) to different characteristics of the ulmifolia complex. Therefore, as long as the basics as @Metrosideros describes are met, differences in appearance should be expected.

So, bravo Janet for all your research and Dave for knowing all along the identity of this plant and as far as i'm concerned i feel completely comfortable adding my photos to the database. @plantladylin, Dave and Janet have been clear about this from the beginning and near beginning respectively, and i am now ready to post to the database, tell me what you think and if you are comfortable or still have concerns.

I feel confident that the plant is Turnera ulmifolia

Sounds like time well spent! Turnera ulmifolia has a history of being a valuable medicinal as well. One reason accounting for it's widespread distribution.

http://jaherbs.com/index.php?o...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

http://herbpathy.com/Uses-and-...

I would agree the overall evidence is that Turnera ulmifolia is wide spread in Florida, it is part of a complex with variations, and is most likely to be that plant. If it isn't, nobody will know unless they send someone around to confiscate your plants to do scientific evaluation on them.

These 'queries' can be very educational!

Of course, without taking parts of your plant and comparing them with the identifying features as shown on this site there will always be a small element of doubt, and there is a possibility it's a hybrid. My mind tells me that is a real possibility due to the hybrid nature of it, hybrids are generally chosen for uniformity of germination, their good looks and flower power.

You guys and gals are amazing, thanks so much all the research you've done regarding this plant! The plant that had been growing in my yard was back in February 2013 and I haven't seen anything like it around the neighborhood but will keep my eyes out.

A way to prove that a plant is a hybrid is that it's characters fall outside of it's typical description.

Such as, varying numbers of sepals, petals, and pollen bearing stamens. Flowers not being solitary. Leaves not simple, alternate, with toothed edges. Etc.

http://ntsavanna.com/elm-leave...

Of course there are varieties of the plant, but if they meet the key characters, they are the same species. A hybrid would have to exhibit a differing set of characters.

http://florida.plantatlas.usf....

http://www.levypreserve.org/Pl...

http://keyserver.lucidcentral....

Don't hybrids often become sterile? or often, if they have seeds the seeds do not grow up to be the same as the parent plant? This plant produces an amazing amount of seeds and some of these seeds have produced plants identical to the parent. I don't know much about hybrids and i try to keep my garden free of them, but i have heard they are often sterile. Is this true?

All plants differ, some hybrids produce a lot of seed and come quite true to type.