Don't know if this was a wildflower or a weed.
There was only one plant. It grew itself in a neglected pot at the back of the garden, not much goes on back there.

With complete neglect and very little water it grew about 12 - 14 inches tall, the flower (single, not in groups) a dark yellow color, only about 1/2 - 3/4 inches in size, looked like it had 4 petals, but it had already finished flowering so I can't be positive; the pointed sepals seemed to be longer than the petals. The most distinctive feature is the seed pod which is about 2 inches in length, and the hairy stems -


The seeds are very tiny and this shape.
I saved seeds from the two seed pods just in case this is not a weed.

This is just a wild guess:

Yellow Crown-Beard (Verbesina occidentalis)

https://plants.usda.gov/core/p...

Here's a page with some other yellow Georgia Wildflowers: https://uswildflowers.com/wfqu...

@plantladylin, thanks for the guess,; I had a look at several sites for the Verbesina occidentalis, but sorry, it's not the correct one.

The more I look on all the sites, including the one for Georgia wildflowers, all I can see is a similarity to some traits of the Oenothera plants, but my little plant has a seed pod which is longer and thinner than the others I seeing.

I have hunted through the seed pod images and the seed images on http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/a... and no luck there yet.

I will start again tomorrow.

Oenothera villosa ?

http://luirig.altervista.org/f...

http://www.pnwflowers.com/flow...

http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/p...

Slowly I am looking through lists of every Oenothera with photos and descriptions. Some I have found are close, but not quite right.
I do regret that I have no photo of the flower, but want to keep up the search before my brain forgets the image of the bloom.
I'll post if and when I find the 'correct' one.

Did you check the list I posted for Georgia?

http://luirig.altervista.org/f...

Yes, thank you .
I checked online for all the sites that I usually use like the Missouri list of Wildflowers, Florida wildflowers, LadyBird's list, the Seed identification site/UK for both seeds and seed pods, and a bunch of others, exhausting my usual places before posting my request here on ATP. I go back and double-check each one in case I missed something. I use different key words and check Google Images and follow leads that way as well.

I checked the Southeastern Flora and they only listed 4 types: O. biennis, O. fruticosa, O. laciniata and O. linifolia and they don't match either.

I am currently looking down the loooong list of about 100 types Southwestern on http://swbiodiversity.org/sein... and comparing. Sometimes in the text they will make comparisons of the western or southwestern types to the eastern or southeastern types. It's a lot of reading!

The one thing I am sure of is that it is some type of Onagraceae so it's narrowed down at least that much - from there I am looking at the Oenothera first and then will check Ludwigia and...that's as far as I am at the moment.

I have 3 kinds of Oenothera in my garden already which were planted on purpose plus one type which grows wild at the roadside in my neighborhood.. This new plant could have come via the birds, the wind, or with soil or compost/mulch from any number of places. It may have even tagged along from our local swap last October. Who knows?

I know the plant was growing under stressful conditions and did not look its best, but I was able to see two flowers just as they were fading away, the color of which were not as pale yellow as my others, the sepals were bright light-ish green (like a green apple color), narrow-ish, and pointy and did not fall away as the flower faded so I am thinking I should be focusing on Lugwigia?; have pretty good photos of the pods/capsules, stems and leaves.

This is way more fun than cleaning the house!

It does remind me of Primrose Willow (Ludwigia)

Last year I had Peruvian Water Primrose (Ludwigia peruviana) that sprouted behind our porch and it grew to a height of about 5'. I thought it was a weed so I yanked it out. It was really pretty and now I kind of wish I'd left it.

Seaside Ludwigia (Ludwigia maritima) is another that grows in the south.

L. leptocarpa: http://www.wildflower.org/plan...

Checked several more Ludwigia.

Ludwigia octovalvis is getting a bit closer to the flower color, sepal color and shape, and seed pod/capsule - unfortunately my back yard is like a desert and Ludwigia octovalvis grows in wet places. Plus the leaves are still off - so not the right answer yet. If I consume the L. octovalvis I may benefit with a longer life and better memory.

If my little plant was meant to live in the wet, it is a very determined little fellow to grow where it did. It deserves a second chance; I hope the seeds will germinate when the time comes.

I will begin again in the morning and concentrate on the Ludwigia search.

Marking this solved as some type of Ludwigia.

Same plants; different year.
I was able to grab a few photos of this possible Ludwigia before the neighbor whacked all the "weeds" in my old yard: