Hello, just hoping for some help in identifying the shoots growing from this schefflera. They started popping up about five months ago, no leaves on any of them yet. Each one divides into a new segment every few weeks. Could it be part of the same plant, or should I be pulling them out? Thanks!
That dichotomous branching (each branch splits, then splits again repeatedly - good photo showing that) doesn't seem to be how schefflera grows. It's very curious - do you have a cat? I wonder if it's been eaten at the tips or that's how whatever-it-is grows.
No cat, but after reading your reply and searching for dichotomous house plant I've come up with a possibility, maybe a psilotum. Psilotum - Wikipedia Thanks!
I've seen Psilotum nudum in gardens in Honolulu, and yes, way cool. And good sleuthing. I never would have made the connection. I see at Psilotum nudum – Laidback Gardener that they have a creeping underground rhizome (and are now classified as true ferns). I would try to remove some of it with the rhizome (trying not to damage the Schefflera, which you'd think would be grateful anyway) and pot it up to see if it will grow and get spores. Of course then you'll have to remove it from all your other houseplants, or maybe not, since that article says the spores germinate underground. I'm attaching two photos. I remember the garden - the owner said he didn't plant it; it just appeared and he didn't know what it was.
I am forcing myself to not type up the long story of why I was looking up Psilotum postings just now *, but I've just come across a thread from 2007 in which the OP found this growing in a potted plant, also a Schefflera. Others posted for ID were growing with other potted plants. https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/i-dont-have-a-clue.31054/ * OK, short story - see a close-up photo posted two years ago on Facebook by Foster Botanical Garden (in Honolulu), which page I have just discovered, came up thanks to some algorithm. https://www.facebook.com/FosterBotanicalGarden/photos/a.2347639105262494/4648077968551918/. Hawai'ian name: Moa, great common name: Whisk Fern.
Off topic now, have turned off at the fork to dichotomous branching. A succulent tree-looking Asphodelaceae with dichotomous branching came up on Facebook: Aloidendron dichotomum, quiver tree, indigenous to South Africa and Namibia. Aloidendron dichotomum - Wikipedia Here's the FB photo: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=823718546400269&set=a.136393325132798. And a photo from a search: https://global-geography.org/attach...hotomum_Quiver_Tree/NA0002g_Kocherbaumjpg.jpg
