Close-up of the top portion of the plant

I saw a few at the greenhouse like that yesterday. I think Ken posted something about this a while back. From what I remember, it's nothing to worry about.

Gesila

I'm probably out to lunch, lol but I'll venture out anyway - and guess that it is a fasciated (sp?) flower scape. Last year a bagged Blue Mouse Ears pushed forth a flower scape first instead of leaves. I don't have the scientific "words" at the tip of my tongue but I call it arrested development. Had it not gone into dormancy when it did, it would have produced a flower scape.

Am I even close, Ken or Steve?

I'm sure the Master Gardeners will explain it properly :-)

Jo

Cool looking, whatever the reason!

Here's some info from last year.

bk

Here is a link that might be useful: fasciated scape

My one of two Empress Wu I got last year is doing the same flower thing as yours and just noticed it today too. This Wu is larger but the other is more open leaves so far

Thank you for your input, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for the link, bk. I must've missed reading that one last season. I'll check it out.

I read through the post on fasciated scapes. I concur that this is probably what's going on with my hosta. The difference is that all of those hostas on the thread had leaves with weird scapes growing out of them, while mine has no leaves at all to speak of (besides the puny one clinging to the scape). Does anyone know if I might expect a flush of leaves later in the season?

Live with it, photograph it, enjoy it.

Call it names

It will be back to normal next season.

I remember way back when I saw one at a store and bought it. It was normal the next season, and every year after that.

dave

It will flush out new leaves. This has happened to several of mine over the years. The bloom cycle gets interrupted from the prior year. It's just finishing what was already started last season.

It's definitely fasciated scapes. I saw a bunch of one specific hosta with that going on in the greenhouse at Plant Delights today.