The Birds-foot trefoil grows in huge patches and has a deep root system. It spreads via underground stems like rhizomes or above-the-ground stems like stolons. A tall weed with yellow flowers and six to nine petals, the Creeping Buttercup can get as tall as 50 cm. A low-growing weed, the Creeping Buttercup blooms from around April to late August or early September. Notes: This is a perennial grass with upright leaves and flower spikelets. It grows in grassy areas, roadsides and disturbed lands. It rapidly spreads across grassland, making it highly invasive in this habitat. 66. Burr Medic

Weeds’ are plants with special botanical and ecological attributes that allow their rapid establishment in disturbed areas, helping to reduce erosion of soils. It’s a popular food for many wildlife, including the caterpillars of fritillary butterflies, rabbits, deer, and wild turkeys. 45. Pennsylvania Smartweed This plant was used in traditional medicine to treat haemorrhoids. The Lesser Celandine had famous admirers, including poet William Wordsworth and author C. S. Lewis. 15. Hairy Bittercress Weeds also spotlight the mistakes humans have made in managing our environmental assets by large-scale land-clearing, destruction of vegetation and soil resources, as well as unsustainable agricultural practices and urban development. Notes: This perennial grass spans Europe to Asia to the Arctic biome. It’s a creeper that spreads rapidly in grassland. It can be removed from your garden by hand. Just remove the root; otherwise, it’ll regenerate. 53. Henbit DeadnettlePowerful and emotive phrases like ‘war with weeds’ are commonplace in such discourses, especially in developed countries, such as the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This war has led to various groups such as ‘weed busters’ and ‘weed warriors,’ whose efforts at controlling weeds are by and large of limited local success, and essentially unsustainable in the long term. Notes: The name “Yellow Foxtail” was given because of the plant’s bristly flower spikelets, which resemble a yellow fox’s tail. It has hairless stems which tend to be green or purple. Notes: Dollarweed acquired its name from the shape of its leaves, which resemble a silver dollar. Its leaves look slightly like lilypads, sporting scalloped edges and a fleshy appearance, but the plant produces white flowers. It typically grows in damp gardens and lawns. 32. Petty Spurge

Richard Mabey is one of the UK's greatest nature writers and in this book examines all aspects of the cultural history of weeds: Grassy weeds or sedges that are really hard to eliminate from your lawn, usually requiring complete lawn renovation.Broadleaf weeds have fibrous roots of different types: either a root system, one big taproot, or both of these. Their stems can be round or square. Broadleaf weeds grow in different ways, either upright or spreading very close to the ground. Woody and Vining Weeds

Notes: This plant grows in woodlands, meadows, and disturbed areas but is a common weed of gardens and lawns. It’s also called “Lemon Clover” as it possesses clover-shaped leaves. Boiling the plant releases a natural orange dye. 70. Orchardgrass The plant has non-photosynthetic stems which keep the plant alive during summer and photosynthetic stems that take over during autumn. 38. Hairy Crabgrass There are a lot of invasive weeds, but hopefully, this article will help you identify the ones that grow in your garden or lawn.

Notes: Pigweeds are a group of plants known for the characteristic colouration of their flowers, ranging from yellow to purple. Pigweed plants thrive in waste and disturbed land. Darwin reportedly joked to Asa Gray about the pervasiveness of British weeds in N. America, and the scarcity of Amer. weeds in England, "Does it not hurt your Yankee pride that we thrash you so confoundedly?" Gray's wife responded that American weeds were "modest, woodland, retiring things; and no match for the intrusive, pretentious, self-asserting foreigners." Mabey says this is "both witty and scientifically spot-on."

Stories about weeds that are mostly written and read in popular media, including the internet, are mostly concocted to invoke fear and loathing instead of a proper ecological understanding. Whether or not inadvertently created, these negative narratives often reflect a form of nascent xenophobia and anxieties in the general public about ‘immigrants’ who arrive at new locations, having left their ‘native’ places of origin. There is another way to classify weeds, depending on all these categories above. This will help you further identify the weeds in your garden and start making a plan to control them. Traditional cultures in such societies greatly value species such as Centella asiatica (gotu kola), Alternanthera sessilis (lesser joyweed), Ipomoea aquatica (swamp morning glory), Portulaca oleracea (purslane), Basella alba (Ceylon spinach), Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) and a large number of other ‘edible weeds.’ Questo libro ricorda un po' quell'affermazione, anche se tratta il tema da botanico e giardiniere e non da orticultore. Mi è piaciuta molto la disanima su cosa sono le erbacce e su come alle piante questa definizione venga appioppata a seconda di quanto ci sono utili o fastidiose. E dato che lavoro in un posto in cui molto si parla di piante e specie aliene veder trattato l'argomento in maniera tutto sommato divulgativa è stato un piacevole diversivo. Unica pecca - ma dato che l'ho letto sul reader è inevitabile - mancano foto e illustrazioni delle varie piante citate. Così l'ho dovuto leggere con internet sempre attivo.This perennial weed can get up to 2 metres and it looks fairly good. It has blue flowers, shaped like tiny bells that usually bloom in late spring or early summer. Notes: Grows alongside roads, hedges, and waste areas. Its leaves are typically green but turn red when its pink flowers appear. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay. The main enemy of grassy weeds is autumn’s first frost. However, each of these noxious weeds produces thousands of seeds, so they’re very likely to sprout stronger in springtime.