A little ID help needed! These aren’t my usual weeds, so I thought I better confirm that they actually are weeds before I pull them. Can anyone help me out?
This one is growing way too close to my damianita. I was pulling other weeds at the time and something seriously irritated my skin — if I’m correct it was this plant. The other ones were ones I pull all the time, like nutsedge and something with tiny white flowers. I should have taken a picture of that one, too — it crops up all over my flower beds in the backyard. Next time on that one. Edit: I believe this is Nettleleaf Noseburn (Tragia urticifolia) — if it touches your skin, you will feel as though a dozen fire ants stung you, or a big ol’ wasp got you. It hurts! It could possibly be Betonyleaf Noseburn as well (Tragia betonicifolia) — in any case, it’s a noseburn! Edit again: Latest report is that this is Heartleaf Noseburn (Tragia cordata). Thanks, Paul! It definitely hurts like the dickens — welts, too. Spreads underground — we’re definitely having trouble keeping it under control.
This next one started out as a two-lobed leaf, and I let it grow until it took some other shape. Now it looks like this. When it was smaller, there were a couple of suggestions about what it was, but it’s changed so I’m re-submitting!
You can see a two-lobed leaf in this other one that’s appeared nearby.
This one is similar, but the leaves are smaller and the lobes slightly different. So might be a different plant?
Thanks for all your help — I just don’t want to pull a friendly plant. Foes be gone, though!
No idea on the first. The pic is too small for me to see details.
The others all look like Ivy leaved Morning Glory – Ipomoea.
What species I can’t tell
Hi Meredith, I’m reading blogs on blotanical. I don’t know what your first plant is, but the other ones look like morning glories to me. If you have those, I imagine there are or will be more in the area.
Allright. I’m going to pull them. I love the look of morning glories, but everything I’ve read says that some are very, very invasive. I’m going to assume that because I’ve got three growing in separate places for the first time ever that these are the invasive kind. I’d still love to figure out the plant in the first photo. I’m wondering if it’s a wild blackberry, but I don’t know enough about them.
Meredith,
I agree on the morning glory. The other I have no idea, it is pretty. I doubt it is a bad invasive. What makes a plant a weed anyway, our butterflies here just love the weeds.
I agree on the morning glory. The weed is a nasty one, that’s for sure. I grow ‘Heavenly Blue’ M. Glory every year and love them, but as soon as I seed those weeds I start pulling them. If left alone, they will twine around everything and strangle things. Not sure about the first one. It does look familiar. Pigweed maybe http://xrl.in/2tya
let me know if the link doesn’t work- I’ll send it to you.
Hmmm, it’s hard to tell from the Google pictures of pigweed — I actually think pigweed might be some other weeds I have in my yard! Today I’m wondering if that first plant might be stinging nettle. http://natureasmedicine.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/stinging-nettle.jpg It would certainly explain why it irritates my skin!
On your Stinging Nettle guess:
Stems square / 4 sided?
Leaves and stems hairy?
Leaves opposite?
Stem have a purple/red color?
Answer yes to all of the above and I’d say you got it.
Something about the photo though makes me doubt it.
Well, it’s pulled and gone, so I can’t check it now, not without climbing into the trash can (I opted not to compost this guy). But it was painful enough that I decided I couldn’t work around it, regardless of what it might be. Looking at the original picture close-up, I can definitely say that it’s hairy all over and the stems have a purple/red color. I’m not sure what you mean about the stems being square. The leaves alternate. The plant is so hairy all over that I’m getting prickly feelings just looking at it!
Perhaps a wood nettle variety?
Meredith, I should say that your weeds look very lovely!
Not anymore! 😉
Stinging nettles have a stem that is not round. They’re not quite like mints that are easily described as square but you can see and feel the angles on stinging nettle stems.
Alternate leaves point to something completely different than any nettle. Or at least any I’ve seen or heard about.
Guess we’ll have to let the mystery plant rest in peace.
Not an expert, but looks like a stinging nettle to me. I had some next to my pool filter, and these look the same. I can testify, at least, that they *felt* like stinging something or other.
The first one is heart-leaf noseburn.
Thanks, Paul. I do believe you are correct. It’s hard to find a lot of info on the different noseburns — I just know that mine is wickedly painful!