We get our yard mulch each year from the county recycling center.  They basically give it away to people and we used to go have them load up our pickup a couple of times a year until we didn't have a pickup anymore and learned that they will drop off a truckload of it in your driveway for less than a Jackson.  (There's several years of shoveling mulch out of the pickup that we're never going to get back.)  But because it's recycled from all the leaves and yard waste the county picks up in the fall, there are often odd things growing in it.  Last year we had an overabundance of mushrooms; the year before that, we had a few random tomatoes come up where we planted none; we've even had pumpkins mysteriously volunteer in places where a pumpkin seed never got near. It's always a surprise.

This year this little enigmatic flower sprung up out of nowhere.  We spent a couple of weeks debating what it might be and then finally when it bloomed, The KingofHearts cut a flower off and took it to our neighborhood nursery, where the people they employ have forgotten more about plants then I ever cared to know.  He walked up to a sales associate with the stalk in his hand and said, "I have a question maybe you can answer...."

"I bet you're going to ask me what that Columbine in your hand is, aren't you?"