Common Ragwort is despised by horse owners in particular but lots of wildlife, including this house sparrow is depended on it! See more in this post. (Picture by Matt Summers)
To talk kindly about the weeds in my weekly blog, we first need to identify those weeds of which many people despise…!
This website mentions over 20 most troublesome weeds, upon which I will hope to do a write up in the coming weeks. As my partner is going through 1000’s of pictures taken by him in the last 10 years, I will occasionally stray to another weed/native plant which I think is worth you knowing about!
Pseudofumaria lutea or Yellow Corydalis grown inside a wall (Picture by Mike Poulton)
The post in November 2018 explained all about the uses and stories behind the genus Papaver which includes the Common Poppy, Welsh Poppy and Opium Poppy.
To remind ourselves:
The Poppy family or Papaveraceae has 12 genera and is split into 2 Sub-families;
the Papaveroideae with 7 genera which includes Papaver.
and the Fumarioideae with 5 genera.
The Papaveroideae has 2 sepals, 4(-6) showy petals, and white or yellow latex.
The distinctive flowers of subfamily Fumarioideae are unique, but the two subfamilies are linked by intermediates (Stace).
Colour coding for easy reading is blue for general interest. Green for various uses of the plant and pink background for medicinal use or toxic warning!
This is just an educational blog on Ethnobotanical uses of plants and we can not take any responsibility for any adverse effects! Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.
To start off, a plant who most of us know very well: The Dandelion.
Most of us love and/or hate the dandelion. Their en mass-flowering period is relatively short although it will carry on sending new flowers throughout the year. This post was my first plant about a member of the Asteraceae family back in July 2018!
It is probably the most useful native member so this is why it needs an entire post!
Time for a re-write as we have now the Gutenberg editing.
The following posts are all about the Asteraceae or Compositae as they used to be called:
The Harebell or Campanula rotundifolia is a delicate wildflower here seen on our coast (by Matt Summers)
The Campanulaceae or Bellflower family is another family with many useful ornamental garden varieties but also has several native species in the main genus Campanula as well as in the genera: Legousia, Hesperocodon (Wahlenbergia), Phyteuma, Jasione and Lobelia.
See on the next page for all the main species in this family and about their ethnobotanical uses. This blog cannot provide all the info, such as where you can find them, what soil conditions, etc. But this is why I provide the links of some other marvelous websites out there! Green background is for the usual Edible or Wildlife uses and pink background for Medicinal uses.Blue background for ‘Interesting facts’ , although I hope you find all my information interesting!
Probably the most common Crane’s-bill is Herb Robert or Geranium robertianum!
This week another pretty and mostly common native ‘weed’ which can even be useful! It easily could have been called the ‘Geranium’ family instead of Crane’s-bill family as the genus Geranium is its largest member here!
But the genus Erodium, has also several native species on the B.I. and has a fruit similar to a stork’s bill.
So what is the difference in those bird bills to give these plants their common name?
Found this information online from Bird expert Quentin Kalis. “The easiest way is to look at the bill; storks have large heavy bills and cranes have short bills.” Herons have intermediate bills between the two, and you can see pictures of those birds in the link here.
A few native Geranium and Erodium species are ‘useful’ for us people. Various insects find the plants a good food source. Below is a list of all the species which are native according to Stace, with links for you to find out more if you wish!
This week I like to introduce the uses about the Mignonette (or Resedaceae) family here on the British Isles with only 5 species mentioned in Stace, whereby just 2 are native and 3 are introduced species. I like to introduce their uses
I got inspired to write this post as I noticed the Weld plant on a boatyard we visited last week. I love the rosettes of wrinkly leaves and the tall spikes of small flowers.
Another mignonette, not native, called the Garden Mignonette or Reseda odorata is well worth growing due to its lovely scent! I have been growing it in hanging baskets this last season on our allotment for this reason. It is supposed to be annual although it survived last year’s winter!
All the information found is again from various Floras and websites and the links for those are provided. Have utilized the info in our very own Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country this time which is produced by Ecorecord. Pictures by Matt Summers unless stated otherwise.
Large Lime along busy road in Walsall (picture by M. Summers)
Pollarded Lime In Dudley (picture by M. Poulton)
Lime trees are versatile in use and stature in towns and countrysite!
The Lime trees are recognisable large trees often planted along roads and in parks. They often get pruned very hard, a process called: pollarding, which may happen in restricted areas such as shown in the picture above. Fortunately the trees in Walsall are not pruned so are extremely scented when in flower and very useful for honeybees!
They have heart-shaped leaves, fragrant flowers in summer and later the round, pea-size fruit are attached to the persistent papery leaf called a bracteole which ‘sails’ down to the ground eventually and possibly form a new tree if it finds some suitable soil!
Malva sylvestris or Common Mallow growing as a pretty weed (by Mike Poulton)
I was inspired to write up about the Mallows this week as I have many seedlings of the Common Mallow below a large mother plant on my allotment and I noticed that my opposite neighbour also had some. When I spoke to her she was just about to dig some large specimen up and told me she had several all over her allotment too. So this lovely, innocent looking plant can be a little invasive!
The Malvaceae includes the easy recognisable, pink flowered Mallows as well as our Lime trees. This seems very unlikely as they do not resemble each other in the slightest and therefore they have often been separated into the Tiliaceae as for example in the Wild Flower Key by F. Rose. However according to Stace the molecular evidence shows that genus Tilia should be united in the Mallow family. As there are too many Mallows to write about I will cover the Limes in a next post!
Most information is again from various websites or books and floras for which are provided links throughout the text for some more information. If you are very interested in this family it is worth getting the Mallow notebook through the fabulous Eatweeds.co.uk. It has a lot more descriptions about the individual Mallows as well as good pictures for identification.
