November 22, 2013 - November has brought us a surprise. It's a new plant that has been growing on our property since we've moved in, but now it's flowering. When I first notice it at the beginning of the month, it appeared as if it was about to flower.
However, when I went around to the back side of the plant, I could see that the flower has already emerged.
It was beautiful, but unfortunately, I had no idea what it was. After searching the Internet, I found a great source in identifying plants that was written by Dr. Lena Struwe of Rutgers University. It helps to identify 50 plant families and it works extremely well. It appears the mystery plant is part of the Arum family, technicality known as the family araceae. I would guess that the most commonly known plant in the same family is the calla lily. From further research, it looks like it is an xanthosoma sagittifolium, which is commonly called an arrowleaf elephant's ear. Then, several weeks after the first flower, our elephant ear plant has graced us with a second flower. The first one is slowly decomposing to the left.
This time the flower fortunately faced the front.
August 6, 2014 - The elephant ear plants have taken over the corner of the house and are now blocking the birds of paradise from the sun. Before cutting them back, I took these pictures. Some of the leaves are at least three feet long.
