Agaveville

I was at a house for sale yesterday and saw this plant outside. Listing agent didn’t know what it was. 2 local nurseries stumped. Picture This app no help. Any ideas? About 4’ high and wide, succulent leaves, umbelliferous flowers.

Thats not Ammi? False Queen Anne's lace?..blue green foliage..flowers?

No - much more succulent on the leaves and woody stems. Much less herbaceous.

milky sap?

Don’t know - didn’t want to mess with it given the situation

I was wondering about the leaves. Are they feathery, or stiff and supple like a succulent? Not really like needles it appears. I see they dry and form a covering on the lower part of the stem, so they apparently are fastened pretty solid to the stem. Obvious then, these plants are old, and perennial, and woody stems.

I did some searching yesterday on websites where you check off characteristics, but couldn't come up with anything that was right. Inflorescence is a corymb, flowers look actinomorphic, like tiny daisy flowers all clustered together.

One of the several possibilities (nothing really fit) that came up was the Apiaceae family, of which Queen Anne's Lace is a member. I saw images of that, but easily rejected that as a possibility for the same reasons you mentioned yourself, and because the flowers are just wrong.

I'm just curious about it, and will probably give it another go today searching a little more. It does look like a tough one, and I guess I'm not surprised the nurseries were stumped.

If I recall they were more supple leaves, but again I didn't want to manhandle the plant because the owner wasn't there to ask permission. Wish I had anyway!

It's like a senecio barbertonicus, an achillea millefolium and a sedum telephium got together...

I also get a Channel or Canary Island vibe from it. Maybe Paul has a faint idea of seeing it there?

Looks like Gardenweb forum is getting close: Phymaspermum acerosum (formerly Athanasia acerosa) or Hymenolepsis crithmifolia synonyms: Athanasia, H. parviflora, H. crithmoides

None of those has a white flower though...

Stan wrote:I also get a Channel or Canary Island vibe from it. Maybe Paul has a faint idea of seeing it there?

Nothing I have seen, Stan. I grow a plant called Seseli gummifera which delights in the common name of Moon Carrot - it is very similar but not the same. Maybe it is related to that?

Watching the cuss'in botanist and I think we need to stick to the carrot family. He was just going over some from Baja and in south Texas.
Only,I didn't remember exactly which vid. Sorry. But those umbelliferous flowers scream Carrot family.