Hmm, anybody else see the little flower on either side of the Ornithogalum in Stefan's picture up above? The beautiful drawing, I mean. There are the big Star of Bethlehems and then on either side of them is a smaller plant with nodding pinkish flowers kind of like Becky's.

On the drawing it says "Palma Christi" or something like that (wait, let me get my glasses . . . ) But when I googled Palma Christi plant it came up with Castor Bean.

It looks vaguely familiar but I don't know what it is either, sorry Becky. But I don't think it's terribly invasive since none of us have ever seen it. Is it possible that seeds or small bulbs came along with your daylily fans from somewhere else? They may have been in there a while, and not noticed until the flowers showed up. Did you get any other interesting "guest" plants in that load of dirt?

Elaine - I got lots of weed seeds in that dirt, too. Those daylilies in the front border where this mystery plant is showing up came from my backyard garden when I moved some around. I have NOT seen any of those bulb plants come up in my backyard. So I am quite positive they came either with the dirt load or perhaps from some bags of topsoil (which I have used many times before and never seen any bulbs). These bulbs have popped up all over that area that had the fill dirt, so I am quite positive that is where they came from. Where that dirt came from though ... no clue.

Isn't that weird we can't figure out what this plant is? I can't help but wonder if it is a recent foreign import. Came in from an imported plant or something and has started spreading around central Florida. I've never seen anything like it. I truly think they are invasive because they seem to grow really fast. I did NOT notice any bulbs in the dirt when I originally planted the daylilies in that area. But some of those bulbs from this mystery plant were quite large. I am sure I will be pulling more up. They look so much like daylily leaves, too.

Oh! I also continued my daylily border in front of my hedges in front of my southeast exterior wall. No bulbs showing up there. And no dirt was spread around in that area of the hedges ... so there you go! Septic drain field fill dirt for sure!!!

Yes I feel that they will know what this is, and if not, they may direct you to someone else. They do know lots about bulbs. That's what they do.

@dyzzypyxxy Elaine, if you go to the third link in Stefan's post you will find that the site has illustrations of 30 species of Ornithogalum. A lot of the illustrations resemble the plant under scrutiny. It would take a bit of time to start searching for photos of the different ones. You wouldn't have to tackle all thirty, though. Some are clearly too different.

http://www.bihrmann.com/caudic...
http://www.pacificbulbsociety....

Stefan - Thanks for those 2 links!

It looks very close to this one:
http://www.pacificbulbsociety....

Not quite, but close. The bloom color doesn't match, but the daylily-like leaves and the structure of the bloom buds and scape look very close.

Two other places to try might be the ATP bulb forum and your local Extension office.

This is an invasive orchid in Florida. We have seen these at the Botanical Garden. The bulbs form many underground bulblets and as such it is very difficult to eradicate.
Here is an article about it.
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/nod...

I think Hetty has got it, there's a photo of partly opened flowers showing spurs which can be seen, I thought it was an orchid.

Eulophia graminea ..

http://www.eddmaps.org/florida...

THANK YOU, Hetty!

We were all stumped and as I feared, it is an import that spreads seeds by air. No wonder I have so many growing in my front garden bed!!! Yikes!!

Here is some interesting read about it:
http://www2.fiu.edu/~kopturs/p...

beckygardener said:THANK YOU, Hetty!

We were all stumped and as I feared, it is an import that spreads seeds by air. No wonder I have so many growing in my front garden bed!!! Yikes!!

Here is some interesting read about it:
http://www2.fiu.edu/~kopturs/p......

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Thank you, Hetty! I knew that someone in Florida must have seen this plant before and would be able to ID it! I knew I'd seen it before but couldn't remember where; it was probably in South Florida when I was visiting family!

My first thought was, oh how pretty a container full would be ... but if the seeds are windblown they'd surely end up everywhere! http://goorchids.northamerican... I see they are listed as a Cat. II non-native http://florida.plantatlas.usf....

http://fnai.org/Invasives/Eulo...

According to this article it has apparently naturalized in Florida:
http://www2.fiu.edu/~kopturs/p...
http://www2.fiu.edu/~kopturs/p...

The flowers remind me somewhat of the Florida native Orchid (Encyclia alata)

Oops, or maybe the Florida Butterfly Orchid (Encyclia tampensis) which is the Fla. native.

A little bit, Lin but Enc. tampensis is not a ground orchid. This crazy little guy started out in a tree fern basket but has 'reached out' and happily attached itself to the tree branch. I'm hoping it will seed itself one day and I'll have a whole colony there. It does set seeds every year.

so I'm still thinking this looks so much like my candy lilies, which I thought where a type of iris? Are these related to orchids? I just planted some candy lilies in my garden last fall and now I'm wondering if they may seed like crazy and take over?

Elaine, I saw that Hetty identified Becky's plant as Eulophia, a terrestrial. I just meant that the flowers were reminding me of Encyclia. Encyclia tampensis grows on live oak trees at our little botanical gardens here in town.

I fixed my link in my last post: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Some interesting info about this invasive plant in the pdf file. I will probably be pulling a lot of them up again over time if they spread easily by small seeds carried on the wind. (sigh)

It came from Asia! Why am I not surprised. Most alien plants become quite invasive in Florida because of our tropical climate.

AND .... it is growing where I have wooden mulch which is believed to harbor the seeds. To a "T"!!!

Frillylily said:so I'm still thinking this looks so much like my candy lilies, which I thought where a type of iris? Are these related to orchids? I just planted some candy lilies in my garden last fall and now I'm wondering if they may seed like crazy and take over?

Candy lilies, Pardancanda are an intergeneric hybrid in the Iris family, Iridaceae. The Iridaceae are in the monocot plant Order Asparagales, along with orchids, daylilies, amaryllis, agave, onions, hyacinths and a whole lot of other plants. So there is a relationship but it wouldn't be a basis for comparing behaviour, you wouldn't even expect all other members of the orchid family to be a nuisance like this one. From what I understand candy lilies can self-seed but not to the point of being a nuisance but I've never grown them so do someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I too had pondered orchid for the mystery plant - if the flowers had been fully open it would have been easy!

Becky, we currently have no database photos of Chinese Crown Orchid (Eulophia graminea) I hope you will consider adding some pic's!

Lin - Good idea! I did submit a few photos and a comment about this plant. I am sure more and more folks in Florida and perhaps other southern states will be seeing it more and more. Thanks for posting the link in the Plant database.