Monday, May 27, 2013

Weeds of the Friendly City (part one) ***

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." --Ralph Waldo Emerson


       The first so-called weed I encountered was (you guessed it)...none other than dandelion (Taraxicum officinale), right at the corner of Worth Avenue and Union. Of all nuisances, this plant least deserves the name. The culinary literature on dandelions is vast: from its roots or leaves or flowers you can make dandelion tea, dandelion salad, dandelion wine, even a coffee substitute, all of which are healthy and tasty. I like the French name: pisse-en-lits (pissabeds), which leaves no doubt about its diuretic properties.
dandelion: don't eat it just before bed
         
     Next was sow thistle (Sonchus sp.): a nasty customer. I haven't been able to discover any of this plant's virtues, except, maybe, that it sometimes sports a bright yellow flower. But most of the time it just squats there covered in spines, glowering at passerby. The photo below was taken on Warren Street.
sow thistle: a tough cookie

        I took a detour onto the railroad near The Finnish Line. Everyone knows train tracks are full of weeds. It wasn't a disappointment. On the margins, near some adjoining backyards, it was hard to miss
what I think are stocks: Matthiola bicornis. In some parts of the US, it is considered a pest but it's hard to think of such a beautiful plant as noxious. Neat colors: pink, purple and white; and on warm June nights it releases an intoxicating perfume.
stocks: a weed or not a weed?

     In the above photo, incidentally, the green plant at the left of center is the infamous garlic mustard, which has managed to make itself unwanted everywhere. It releases allelopathic chemicals, which poison the soil to discourage competition. In Hudson, or at least near Union Street, it is not thriving. But downstate, large areas have been taken over by this ugly and boring plant.

    Right next to the stocks was a fine example of a native plant which for some reason has a bad rep.
Milkweed (Asclepias sp.) is nothing much to look at before it blooms, but afterward, it opens an umbrella of pink flowers which attract butterflies and smell like hyacinths. The reason for the resentment against it might lie in a comment made by a Hudson gardener. When I happily pointed out she had a milkweed growing in her garden, she gave me a dubious look, "I have to pull them out constantly or they will take everything over." For a good review of the uses of milkweed, see the Wikipedia entry for Asclepias.  Reader Tom De Pietro points out that milkweed is the food of monarch butterfly larvae.
milkweed: just getting started
       Soon, on Union Street, I came upon a patch of bedstraw (sometimes known as catchweed or cleavers), Galium aparine. Now, THIS is a weed. It is inedible. Its flowers are ignorable. It grows in a tangled mass, strangling every plant in its path. Plus, it has tiny prickles on its stems and leaves that grab
whatever they can, including clothing and dog fur. No clear virtues here. All in all, a thuggish plant considered a pest in many states, and rightly so. See the mugshot below.
bedstraw: who would want this in a mattress?

          A little further down Union, as if to relive the bad vibes, was a bright clump of  Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus to be exact). It is a member of the poppy family, which is confirmed by  its many medicinal uses. But you wouldn't know it by its modest four-petalled yellow flowers. Greater Celandine looks frail, but will gladly find a home in cracks in walls and sidewalks.
Greater Celandine: looks frail but don't be fooled

         
       Poking out of a fence, to escape the well-tended garden that lay behind it, were a few shoots of yarrow ( Achillea millefolium). Here's a weed that has been bred by plant fanciers to produce large bunches of sulphur yellow or scarlet flowers. However, here was the mother of them all, ready to bloom in small umbrellas of tight-packed ivory pearls.  How did this plant take on the name of Achilles? Maybe it's because yarrow leaves are supposed to stop bleeding.

 *** SOME OF THESE PLANTS ARE DESCRIBED AS HAVING MEDICINAL USES. DO NOT USE THEM WITHOUT A PHYSICIAN'S SUPERVISION.  DO NOT COLLECT THEM FROM PRIVATE PROPERTY OR FROM LAND THAT HAS BEEN TREATED WITH PESTICIDES, OR EXPOSED TO  POLLUTANTS!

2 comments:

  1. Milkweed has some culinary value, when the unripe pods are opened and the contents cooked like pasta... but it's very similar to dogbane which is toxic to humans and pets...milkweed plants have larger leaves and thicker stems than dogbane plants. Milkweed plants also have fuzzy green stems and are shorter than dogbane plants. Milkweed is not poisonous, whereas dogbane is. Read more: How to Spot Dogbane | eHow http://www.ehow.com/how_2092784_spotdogbane.html#ixzz2UiO4xY6W

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  2. Milkweed is essential to the lives of monarch butterfly flies. The pods with silk are wonderful.

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