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The Wonderful Weed Weekly Blog

To talk kindly about the weeds in my weekly blog, we first need to identify those weeds of which many people despise…!

I found the RHS website very useful please see here as well as how to tackle them.

I don’t really want to repeat what this brilliant website says, as my weekly blog wants to highlight the positive things about those weeds!

Weeds are also just being ‘themselves’; one of the many native plants of these Isles! They grow in soil and habitat in which they naturally like to grow in and often we are actually helping them greatly by providing a pleasant environment to thrive even more!

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LOVE YOUR WEEDS!

In the last blog I explained some scientific terms which you will find throughout my blogs. This time I explain a little more why I want to start a blog all about Ethnobotany and our native plants..

The more I work with all kinds of plants, in my daily life and work, the more I appreciate them, and this even includes ‘WEEDS’, or our native plants as I prefer to call them; or even wild flowers as many are pretty as well as useful…. Or ‘PRETTY USEFUL’!!

Crambe maritima or Sea kale looking stunning in its native habitat!


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Chapter 1: Some difficult terms explained in the world of Botany, Ethnobotany and even Horticulture.

As I wrote in a recent blog, I would like to re edit most of the last year’s blogs as we now have the Gutenberg editing and this makes the blogs more beautiful and pleasant to read!

As in any science there are some difficult words and terms used of which I would like to explain some this week.

If not explained you will often find a link on the ‘difficult’ word which will guide you to an explanatory page.

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Common Ragwort or Jacobaea vulgaris and related species.

The Common Ragwort is a mini-habitat for wildlife and seen growing here in a Cornish Hedge! (by M. Summers)

In my previous post all about the classification of the Asteraceae I mentioned Ragwort which used to be in the genus Senecio with 20 species but some have now been split off into the genus Jacobaea.

Today we talk about Senecio and Jacobaea or the Groundsels and Ragworts and their uses. Some of the neophytes can be grown as a garden plant and indeed may have escaped into the wild from your garden……

But the family of Asteraceae is highly evolved to home many insects and supports a rich biodiversity, so is very useful to them!

I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning ( and in this case negative propaganda) in which case I use a pink background. Pictures by Matt Summers, Mike Poulton and Wikipedia.

Contents:

Genus and species of Senecio and Jacobaea

  1. Senecio cambrensis or Welsh Groundsel
  2. S. doria or Golden Ragwort (Neophyte)
  3. S. doronicum or Chamois Ragwort (Neophyte)
  4. S. eboracensis or York Ragwort
  5. S. glastifolius or Woad-leaved Ragwort (Neophyte)
  6. S. inaequidens or Narrow-leaved Ragwort (Neophyte)
  7. S. minimus or Toothed Fireweed (Neophyte)
  8. S. ovatus or Wood Ragwort (Neophyte)
  9. S. sarracenicus or Broad-leaved Ragwort (Neophyte)
  10. S. smithii or Magellan Ragwort (Neophyte)
  11. S. squalidus or Oxford Ragwort (Neophyte)
  12. S. sylvaticus or Heath Groundsel
  13. S. vernalis or Eastern Groundsel (Neophyte)
  14. S. viscosus or Sticky Groundsel (Neophyte)
  15. S. vulgaris or Groundsel
  16. Jacobaea aquatica or Marsh Ragwort
  17. J. erucifolia or Hoary Ragwort
  18. J. maritima or Silver Ragwort (Neophyte)
  19. J. paludosa or Fen Ragwort
  20. J. vulgaris or Common Ragwort

Negative points about Ragwort

Positive points about Ragwort

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Asteraceae part 1

Yarrow and Ragwort are 2 different members of the large ‘Aster’ family – All images are with thanks from Matt Summers

Today and in several future posts I will be talking about members of the Asteraceae. This was called the Compositae for a very long time, which I think is a lot more descriptive about this largest dicotyledon family on Earth!

The first post is all about the classification which is extensive but makes good sense you will discover on the next page!

More information will be given in post 4, 5, 6 below as well as their known uses:

  1. The Dandelion
  2. Asteraceae (part 1) (This post!)
  3. About the Common Ragwort or Jacobaea vulgaris
  4. More science behind the Asteraceae! (part 2)
  5. the more common Asteraceae and their uses (part 3)
  6. the less common members (part 4)

Contents:

General information

1) Subfamily Carduoideae

Tribe 1: Cynareae

The flowers are rarely yellow, usually red to blue. Mostly thistles or very thistle-like.

2) Subfamily Cichorioideae

Tribe 2: the Cichorieae

Plants often produce the white latex, the flowers are usually yellow.

Tribe 3: the Arctotideae

with 2 genera but both are not native

3) Subfamily Asteroideae

The Third Subfamily is the largest one in this family and called Asteroideae, it has 13 tribes and 66 genera! But many are ornamental plants or garden escapes.

Tribe 4: the Gnaphalieae 

Tribe 5: Inuleae Tribe6: the Astereae    Tribe 7: Anthemideae Tribe 8: the Senecioneae Tribe 9: the Calenduleae  Tribe 10: Heliantheae  Tribe 11: Millerieae Tribe 12: Coreopsideae  Tribe 13: Tageteae  Tribe 14: Bahieae Tribe 15: Helenieae  Tribe 16: Eupatorieae 

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Cleavers, Sticky Willie or Goosegrass and some more of the Rubiaceae

The sticky nature of the common Cleavers or Goosegrass! (pictures by Matt Summers unless stated)

This week all about this fascinating plant known as Cleavers, Goosegrass or even; Sticky Willie! And some other important members with their uses are described too.

It can be annoying in gardens but there is one very good use I saw in a ‘permacultural run garden’ which used the plants rather as a disguise for the maturing fruits on Gooseberry, as well as other soft-fruit bushes.  Once the fruits were ripe and ready to pick the entire clinging plant would be ‘peeled’ back and most of the fruit  picked. Any leftovers were for the birds! Much friendlier than netting I thought and it is something I would like to experiment with this year!

This plant is in the Rubiaceae family which is number 110 in Stace. The Rubiaceae is a very large, mainly tropical family and is mostly woody in that climate, whilst in this part of the world they are mainly annual to perennial herbs.

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Yoke’s Magic Salvias now closed for business!

Salvia buchananii
This is one of the best Salvias for growing in a container. A small plant with wonderful, large, furry, magenta flowers, attractive shiny foliage. For more info see Robin Middleton’s website. All the Salvia pictures by my partner Matt Summers.

Maybe the few who read my blog would have noticed that my Salvia shop or online mail order adverb has disappeared?

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Wonderful Weed weekly update!

Wild Strawberry flowering in May along an old shady wall.

As some of my loyal readers may have noticed, it has been several weeks ago when I did my last post on the very large Asteraceae family!

Unfortunately you may have to wait till I am getting a lot less busy, with all my activities in and around my professional gardening..

Hopefully will see you back in several months time as there are many families and genera still not written about in my Virtual Etnobotanical Garden….

Will also attempt to rewrite some of the older blogs as several pictures have disappeared and I can’t add those back in as there is now a new editing version of WordPress.

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Yoke’s Magic Salvias update

It has been a while since my last post as have the excuse of seeing a friend in Tuscany on her herb farm which was like being in paradise. Nature and plants there are just stunning.

But whilst I’ve been away the salvias put on a lot of growth and there has been a lot of activity in the nursery, this being the busy season for all us gardeners!

My first 3 trays of cuttings!

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