# Plant ID please



## PunyTrout (Mar 23, 2007)

One of my new resolutions is to begin to identify plants while doing yard work and pulling '_weeds' . _



It seems like a weed is simply a plant that one is ignorant of its proper name. Rather than just being content to pull weeds, I'd like to rid myself from the ignorance of not knowing what plants I'm trying to rid my yard of.


Please help me identify these plants.

These pop up around my fence line each year.















Does anyone know what this is? 

And assuming that the berries don't contain the cure for cancer, should I be trying to get rid of it? It's getting in the way of my tomatoes and peppers...


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

Poke berry, they are poisonous


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## PunyTrout (Mar 23, 2007)

Thanks BB.


Here is a link for anyone who is interested in reading more about Poke weed, Pokeberry:





__





American Pokeberry







www.fs.fed.us


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## B.Jarvinen (Jul 12, 2014)

Had a customer ask me for help knocking down a Pokeberry patch in Wexford County this year. It had rather completely seized a small pile of residual pine/hwd waste on a logging deck. 

Though I tried to re-assure him it was not a problematic plant overall, he was insistent that he wanted the spot to be growing new timber. He had had it sprayed with just Round-Up the year before but it didn’t accomplish much, probably due to the seed bank in the soil, would be my guess, though I think this plant is also a semi-woody perennial rather than an annual, giving it root reserves to sprout from, not sure. 

So I agreed to try a different strategy - simply mow them off a couple times so the plants would be unable to set a crop of berries. I also planted a few dozen Red Pines where the wood debris was shallow enough to get a seedling into true mineral soil to eventually simply knock the patch out via shade.

The first day I showed up to zip it all down, the patch had just that morning been whacked, hard, by Nature itself: Frost. In early June. So I did not waste time mowing off already dead stems. However I have been unable to return to the site to monitor the rest of the 2021 growing season and I expect that Frost in no way eradicated it from the site. I will be there plenty next year. 

This got me to thinking - why do I rarely see Pokeweed in northern Michigan, as compared to points south, where it appears quite commonly on timber harvest sites? (Though again I have not heard of anyone considering it a problem plant, and timber regen comes up “through” it just fine).

My conclusion was that the northern lower peninsula is just beyond its natural range edge and it is only now slowly able to move farther north.


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## KevinHort (Nov 3, 2020)

It is Pokeweed. Parts of the plant, particularly the fruit, is very poisonous. Ironically enough, the foliage, if prepared properly, can be used in salads and other table fare.


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## -db- (Jan 12, 2016)

KevinHort said:


> It is Pokeweed. Parts of the plant, particularly the fruit, is very poisonous. Ironically enough, the foliage, if prepared properly, can be used in salads and other table fare.


That`s right.


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## Boardman Brookies (Dec 20, 2007)

B.Jarvinen said:


> My conclusion was that the northern lower peninsula is just beyond its natural range edge and it is only now slowly able to move farther north.


Ive been seeing more and more of it now. A buddy of mine knows I like to gather wild elderberry, told me he found a jackpot. Nope all pokeberry!


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## Dish7 (Apr 2, 2017)

Boardman Brookies said:


> Ive been seeing more and more of it now. A buddy of mine knows I like to gather wild elderberry, told me he found a jackpot. Nope all pokeberry!


The plants are deer candy fwiw.


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## Thirty pointer (Jan 1, 2015)

I have watched deer eat the berries .


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## PunyTrout (Mar 23, 2007)

Next plant that comes up every year with the Daylillies is this stuff:













Grows in bunches with a single large leaf around 8 to 12 inches long.


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## B.Jarvinen (Jul 12, 2014)

I would consider “Bitter Dock” (Rumex obtusifolia) perhaps. 

Or Burdock, but you would have noticed the quite memorable 2nd year plants by now.


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## PunyTrout (Mar 23, 2007)

Bitter Dock does seem a likely candidate. Thanks.


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## junkman (Jan 14, 2010)

What's this stuff?


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## micooner (Dec 20, 2003)

junkman said:


> View attachment 790690
> View attachment 790691
> 
> What's this stuff?


I always called that cockleburr. Not sure if that's the correct name.


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## Thirty pointer (Jan 1, 2015)

Looks like a moon flower plant .Edit not a moonflower pods and leaves are different .


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## Radar420 (Oct 7, 2004)

junkman said:


> View attachment 790690
> View attachment 790691
> 
> What's this stuff?


Jimsonweed


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## runs with fire (Mar 12, 2009)

B.Jarvinen said:


> Had a customer ask me for help knocking down a Pokeberry patch in Wexford County this year. It had rather completely seized a small pile of residual pine/hwd waste on a logging deck.
> 
> Though I tried to re-assure him it was not a problematic plant overall, he was insistent that he wanted the spot to be growing new timber. He had had it sprayed with just Round-Up the year before but it didn’t accomplish much, probably due to the seed bank in the soil, would be my guess, though I think this plant is also a semi-woody perennial rather than an annual, giving it root reserves to sprout from, not sure.
> 
> ...


Yep, poke's roots can't live through a real stiff freeze. In the south, poke can like for a good 30 years before it dies of old age. In the Lower Peninsula, it lives a few years, until a hard winter.


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## runs with fire (Mar 12, 2009)

T


PunyTrout said:


> Next plant that comes up every year with the Daylillies is this stuff:
> 
> 
> View attachment 790676
> ...


This is Dock. There are 2 main types. If the leaves feel a bit fuzzy, it's burdock. Burdock has large brown bur in it after maturing. Bloody Dock has more red along the stem, shinier leaves, and grows a lot of smaller seeds.


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## runs with fire (Mar 12, 2009)

junkman said:


> View attachment 790690
> View attachment 790691
> 
> What's this stuff?


A wild variety of Dautra. Looks like one called Angel's Trumpets. The seeds were once used for divination. It messes up your heart rhythm and can make you see things. It was know as "big medicine" by the natives, meaning it was dangerous. Some Dautra are very bad stuff. If the flowers hang down, it's a lesser variety. If the flowers all point upward, that's Dautra Intoxica, aka stay away. Some Hippies have used it, ONCE!


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