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Monday, July 19, 2010

Purple in the Fields - Pick the Bad Plant

 

big bluestem

Decided to switch to purple today. Nothing unusual here, but we'll do a little game at the end. The picture above is a grass, known as big bluestem, or sometimes turkeyfoot, Andropogon gerardii. You can see why! There is a large and growing patch of it in a sandy area of my field.
mistflower

Here's one I found growing in the field next door. The patch is growing rapidly. It's called Mistflower, Eupatorium coelestinum. Other Eupatorium you may know are Joe-Pye Weed, or Boneset.
spotted knapweed

This is Spotted Knapweed, Centaurea maculosa. It is also growing all through the fields here.
blackberry

Finally, here's a luscious blackberry. These also grow in patches throughout my field. Most years there are only a very few berries, but every once in a while there are enough to harvest and freeze. There are actually over 300 species of berries in the Rubus genus.

Here's your assignment. Which one of these plants is a "bad" plant? Do you know why?


See Beautiful Big Bluestem

11 comments:

Julia said...

I know the Himalayan blackberry all too well. It is the expert toe grabber for the unexpecting hiker... I always warn people to pick up their toes cause it can be a doozie.

It grows everywhere here. And voraciously.

betchai said...

I think it is the Centaurea maculosa, I saw some of them here too and a lot more in OR and WA, though how pretty they are but they are noxious non-native plants that crowd out and invade the native species.

VanillaSeven said...

All plant looks lovely. Maybe the first picture is the bad one?

Glynis Peters said...

If I remember rightly, the Turkey foot is an invasive weed.

They all look great though.

rainfield61 said...

The first picture looks less lovely, I agree, it may be the "bad" one.

Sam said...

i have no idea which one is the bad plant. this got me thinking. hmm.. i hope you reveal the answer soon. btw, you might want to join our Summer giveaway – you can win $50 - just grab our badge: http://blog.ed2group.com/2010/07/sizzling-hot-summer-promo-2010/

Ann said...

I have no clue which one is the bad plant. Out of all of them the one I would least want to see would be the first one though. The second two are at least pretty and then of course the berries, who wouldn't want berries

spinninglovelydays said...

Is it the mistflower? We have them here and while the flowers look like little periwinkle starbursts (our variety anyway) they're such thugs. Then again, I may be talking about a totally different plant, lol.

Sharkbytes said...

Thanks for all your guesses! I've revealed the answer in a separate post.

Rick (Ratty) said...

I'm late to this one so I already know the answer. I still wanted to mention again what a shame it is that such pretty plants are bad.

RNSANE said...

Do I ever love blackberries. I remember, as a child growing up in Georgia, these would grow wild along the roadsides and were free for the picking. Of course, their brambles were no fun but, if we could get enough, my mom would always bake us a pie. I was terrible about picking them, though, one for the bucket, one for my mouth!