Is there anyone here who might be able to help me with ID of a plant that has appeared in my garden. I suspect a weed. But if it is a local plant, I’ll let it seed and grow it on.

The leaves are alternate, softly hairy and a pretty distinctive shape. No flowers, so I don’t know colour or form. Small seed capsules which are soft and look sort of like small forget-me-not seed capsules, but they are singles, not in groups.

I sort of started looking down the Chenopodium route, but I’m not able to convince myself. I’ve gone through my weed books and my wildplant books and I’m still in the dark.

buffy said:

Is there anyone here who might be able to help me with ID of a plant that has appeared in my garden. I suspect a weed. But if it is a local plant, I’ll let it seed and grow it on.

The leaves are alternate, softly hairy and a pretty distinctive shape. No flowers, so I don’t know colour or form. Small seed capsules which are soft and look sort of like small forget-me-not seed capsules, but they are singles, not in groups.

I sort of started looking down the Chenopodium route, but I’m not able to convince myself. I’ve gone through my weed books and my wildplant books and I’m still in the dark.

To have any hope buffy, you need to produce much larger photos – can’t see much at all in thumbnails.

If you click on the thumbnail you get the bigger photo. I don’t like big photos in a post.

:)

I’ve got no clue, but I came across this looking for weeds around the Styx.

http://www.weeds.org.au/vicmap.htm

I’m a doktar, not a botanist, but I believe it’s an Embryophyte.

Thanks poik. I don’t have that link. I have the Weed Bible (Auld and Medd), but flicking through the pictures didn’t help. I’m in strife a bit because I don’t have any flower colour….

What’s a weed, anyway?

Standard definition is “any plant in the wrong place”. See, doing the horticultural course all those years ago was not a complete waste of time. And it was fun to do.

So how do weed killers work? How do they know which plants are in the wrong place?

pesce.del.giorno said:

What’s a weed, anyway?

grab the plant and pull on it, if it slids out of the ground like it’s been greased and falls apart in your hand, it’s a plant.
if it takes a 40 tonne excavator, a sydarb of weedkiller and a box of C4 to get out of the ground only to regrow the week after… it’s a weed…

pesce.del.giorno said:

So how do weed killers work? How do they know which plants are in the wrong place?

Some of them mimic the plant’s growth hormones, thus over-stimulating.

morrie said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

So how do weed killers work? How do they know which plants are in the wrong place?

Some of them mimic the plant’s growth hormones, thus over-stimulating.

Monocot, Dicot, google will have answers.

poikilotherm said:

morrie said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

So how do weed killers work? How do they know which plants are in the wrong place?

Some of them mimic the plant’s growth hormones, thus over-stimulating.

Monocot, Dicot, google will have answers.

God has the answers

buffy said:

Is there anyone here who might be able to help me with ID of a plant that has appeared in my garden. I suspect a weed. But if it is a local plant, I’ll let it seed and grow it on.

The leaves are alternate, softly hairy and a pretty distinctive shape. No flowers, so I don’t know colour or form. Small seed capsules which are soft and look sort of like small forget-me-not seed capsules, but they are singles, not in groups.

I sort of started looking down the Chenopodium route, but I’m not able to convince myself. I’ve gone through my weed books and my wildplant books and I’m still in the dark.

I’ve been through quite a number of plant groups and can’t get past Chenopodiaceae, of which there are many (both native and introduced) and most highly variable regarding foliage. If you would photograph the inflorescence it will possibly narrow it down a little.

I’ll have a go at turning it over and photographing them.

(Been up the pub for tea)

buffy said:

I’ll have a go at turning it over and photographing them.

(Been up the pub for tea)

No hurry, going for walk.

OK, one day I’ll make the macro on that camera work. But for now, I do better just taking a photo and using the computer to make it bigger. Try these:

There are some solitary flower stems along the main stem, and some in groups on offshoots. Both sorts originate at leaf axils.

I have no idea why the thumbnails look so blurry in the posts. The actual photos are not that bad.

Thanks for your help.

stumpy_seahorse said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

What’s a weed, anyway?

grab the plant and pull on it, if it slids out of the ground like it’s been greased and falls apart in your hand, it’s a plant.
if it takes a 40 tonne excavator, a sydarb of weedkiller and a box of C4 to get out of the ground only to regrow the week after… it’s a weed…

LMAO!
Good one, Stumps.

buffy said:

Is there anyone here who might be able to help me with ID of a plant that has appeared in my garden. I suspect a weed. But if it is a local plant, I’ll let it seed and grow it on.

The leaves are alternate, softly hairy and a pretty distinctive shape. No flowers, so I don’t know colour or form. Small seed capsules which are soft and look sort of like small forget-me-not seed capsules, but they are singles, not in groups.

I sort of started looking down the Chenopodium route, but I’m not able to convince myself. I’ve gone through my weed books and my wildplant books and I’m still in the dark.

Here you are buffy, Kickxia elatine subsp. crinita the Twining Toadflax, native to Europe.

Put this other supsp. in too to illustrate the variability of these herbaceous plants. It differs in the amount of hair on the pedicel (flower stalk).
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=kickxia+elatine+subsp.+elatine

PermeateFree said:

buffy said:

Is there anyone here who might be able to help me with ID of a plant that has appeared in my garden. I suspect a weed. But if it is a local plant, I’ll let it seed and grow it on.

The leaves are alternate, softly hairy and a pretty distinctive shape. No flowers, so I don’t know colour or form. Small seed capsules which are soft and look sort of like small forget-me-not seed capsules, but they are singles, not in groups.

I sort of started looking down the Chenopodium route, but I’m not able to convince myself. I’ve gone through my weed books and my wildplant books and I’m still in the dark.

Here you are buffy, Kickxia elatine subsp. crinita the Twining Toadflax, native to Europe.

Put this other supsp. in too to illustrate the variability of these herbaceous plants. It differs in the amount of hair on the pedicel (flower stalk).
http://luirig.altervista.org/flora/taxa/index1.php?scientific-name=kickxia+elatine+subsp.+elatine

Here is the missing details from my last post.
http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=in&name=Kickxia~elatine~subsp.+crinita

Ah, so I wasn’t even in the right group. Now I look, I know why the leaf shape looked familiar….plantain (known in my family as soldier boys) are in the same group. Not the plantain that you eat. I see another relative is digitalis.

Thanks for your help. I’ll pull the thing out tomorrow morning. Hopefully I’ll recognize it again next time. I wonder why it has only just turned up.