disturbed

Road sides, construction areas, “waste lands”

Showing 1–12 of 75 results

  • Allium schoenoprasum / chives

    • globe-shaped umbels of pink flowers with darker midveins (stripes)
    • hollow, tubular leaves and flower stalks
    • smells like onions
    • grows from bulbs in clumps or sometimes individually
    • wild in wetlands, fens, meadows; cultivated in gardens

  • Amaranthus retroflexus / pigweed

    • green bottle-brush inflorescence
    • accomplished weed on disturbed sites (including road & driveway cracks)
    • often in gardens, farm fields (edges), roadsides

  • Antennaria spp. / pussytoes

    • small clusters of white flowers, often fringed with red
    • flowers look like a cat's toes, sort of
    • newest leaves silvery/hairy
    • exposed, in many different habitats

  • Arctium minus / lesser burdock

    • purple to pink to lavender thistle-like flowers with hooked bracts
    • nasty hooked seed heads
    • very large, heart-shaped leaves
    • found in a wide variety of disturbed areas

  • Artemisia absinthium / wormwood

    • deeply lobed leaves; grey-green (hairy); aromatic (like sage)
    • stems to 4' tall; up to 20 per plant
    • small clusters of teeny yellow flowers in drooping heads
    • disturbed areas and may be weedy

  • Astragalus purshii / woollypod milkvetch

    • low growing, silvery, compound leaves; no tendrils
    • magenta (or white) "pea-like" flowers with darker keel petal
    • "congested" inflorescence
    • found in very dry areas, not in shade

  • Barbarea vulgaris / yellow rocket

    • showy yellow brassica with relatively large flowers
    • leaves deeply lobed with larger terminal lobe, smaller toward top of stems
    • common on roadsides and waste places in spring
    • siliques about an inch long and curving upward, with beaks and pedicels

  • Bassia scoparia / burningbush

    • large, annual herb (forb)
    • leaves long-ish and narrow
    • inflorescence a highly branched spike with teeny green/yellow flowers
    • may form huge, invasive colonies
    • whole plant turns red in fall
    • a tumbleweed
    • especially in disturbed areas and wastelands in the Valley

  • Beteroa incana / hoary alyssum

    • dense clusters of teeny white flowers
    • 4 petals, each with a notch
    • fruit is a short, fat-ish seed pod (silicle)
    • found in pastures and all manner of disturbed habitats
    • toxic to horses

  • Blitum nuttallianum / Nuttall’s povertyweed

    • ugly little creeping plant from a central stem
    • arrow-shaped leaves with two prominent lobes, especially on lower leaves
    • teeny clusters of teeny greenish flowers; no petals; in most leaf axils
    • widespread, but usually exposed and weed-like

  • Bromus inermis / smooth brome

    • clump forming grass but clonally spreading
    • erect, leafy
    • in winter, leaves curl up (like ribbon)
    • florescence is a nodding panicle, standing well above leaves
    • spikelets bronze/purple at maturity; anthers yellow

  • Bromus tectorum / cheatgrass

    • short bunchgrass, 2 to 30 in at floweirng
    • panicle with all florets to one side; long awns
    • early season growth, flowering, seed drop
    • florets green, turning purple as seeds mature
    • highly invasive!

Showing 1–12 of 75 results