Odd flower

[JennyS]

Found this in the garden yesterday - the flowers look like Wall Pennywort/Navelwort (umbilicus rupestris) but I've never seen it looking like this ?

[buzfuz8149]

Hi Jenny,

flowers say Navelwort to me, but the leaves never seen anything like them - I shall be waiting to see if it is ID.

[aeshna5]

Agree with your ID Jenny. Bizarre plant- obviously something has gone awry with the cell differentiation process. Seems to resemble vivipary where a vegetative clone (plantlet) is produced as happens with certain alpine plants such as a few grasses + Alpine Bistort.

Interesting stuff- see if this will successfully propagate (perhaps with a helping hand!)

[JennyS]

Thanks to you both for the replies.....it is very, very peculiar!
I'm not too good at propagating things, but as its at the edge of a flowerbed I'll do my best not to weed it out!

[JennyS]

And another one, this photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, half a mile away from the first plant. This also seems to be producing a plantlet (or something) above the flowers.
Hmm, very strange......

[buzfuz8149]

Fascinating Jenny and an excellent photo showing the extra growth. Like you say strange.

[Thunderbird+]

Yes it certainly look's strange, but not that I'm familiar with seeing this plant regularly through the seasons.
The only time I've seen this sort of abnormal growth before is when the usual weather patern has also been abnormal and causing a second flush of growth.

Has it been particularly wet, warm etc in your location ?

[JennyS]

Has it been particularly wet, warm etc in your location ?

Yes, SW Ireland is damp and mild!
I showed the photos to a friend and he said that he'd seen that before on Navelwort in Ireland and Cornwall, but never in Somerset. He also wondered if the wet weather had anything to do with it.

[rainmaker]

Are you talking of the long stemmed flower? Is it coming out directly from the large heavily veined leaves? If so it looks like a Digitalis spp (foxglove) - it may be some sort of foxglove hybrid, as the flowers look far apart, but there are definitely white species.

[tufftie]

Hi,
i can get the answer for you but i need to know how long after the main batch of flowers did it occur (the ones behind it look long gone but...). It's in one of your beds what type of soil are you using and what's growing round it - are you conditioning the soil with anything? What was the weather like - you say damp but was it dry before, then rain, then dry again?