It was during the time in past years that I was presenting a
lot of Thursday night nature slide shows, and had to come up with
several different subjects each summer, that I developed one
centered entirely around weeds. It was titled
"Weeds—Villainous Vagabonds" and proved to be one of
the most interesting outdoor subjects I’ve ever pursued in depth.
Perhaps the word villainous in the title was a bit strong --
being viciously wicked or criminal -- but there are a few weeds
that have entered our garden in recent years, including
"quick weed," that would fit this description
perfectly.
The features about preparing for the weed program that I
thoroughly enjoyed was not having to be careful with the
subjects, being able to pick them to my heart’s content and take
extreme close-up pictures of many of the blossoms. It was very
convenient for me to gather these tenacious plants at their peak
of flowering, put them into a jar of water and take them home
where I could use various simple techniques to obtain
well-lighted and sharply-defined colored slides.
The nice aspect of using these aggressive plants as
photographic subjects was that you could admire them one minute
and pull them up the next without worrying about their ultimate
disappearance, so successful are they.
My preference has always been to photograph the subjects in
their natural settings. However, should the day be overcast or
windy, then I wasted little time in taking samples of the weeds
home where I could control both the wind and the light.
My photographing schedule began with the first emergence of
dandelions in spring and continued into late fall with the wide
variety of goldenrods. How deeply impressed I was over the sheer
number of weeds as well as their incredible beauty when looked at
closely. Having seen the unexpected attractiveness of the weedy
flowers from close range, more than one person in the audience
commented, "What makes a plant a weed? They’re so
beautiful!"
One of my favorite definitions comes from the writings of
Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that a weed is a plant whose virtues
have never been discovered. James Russell Lowell added fittingly
to that by saying, "A weed is no more than a flower in
disguise."
Many people describe a weed simply as any plant growing where
it is not wanted, or a plant not intentionally sown whose
objectionable properties outweigh its good features. The
American Indians called weeds in general "white man’s
foot" because it appeared to them that wherever the white
settlers went they invariably "planted" plenty of
weeds.
Weeds are sometimes even thought of as a punishment for man.
Good or bad, they are bound to enter your life at one time or
another. Consider for example the prices you pay for food that
obviously includes the cost of weed control where that food is
grown. Weeds are highly successful plants in many ways. Most
show great adaptability to both diverse and adverse growing
conditions. Give some of the seeds a tiny crack in a sidewalk
and you’ll soon have another plant or even a dozen.
One quality of many weed species, insuring their awesome
success, is the fact that they are highly efficient seed
produces. One large lambsquarters, or pigweed, was found to have
slightly more than 934,000 seeds! And talk about the life span
of some weed seeds -- those of a mullein plant, for example, can
lie dormant for around 35 years and still be viable.
Seed dispersal by many of the weeds is truly astounding. They
can float, be carried by the wind, cling to the wet feathers of a
duck, or be transferred by the mud on the bottoms of your shoes
or stuck in the tire treads on a bicycle, car or truck. The
little boy in me shines each fall when I enjoy taking a ripe
milkweed pod, or better yet a slender fireweed seed pod, hold it
to my mouth and blow forcefully, sending the silky parachutes
with seeds up into the wind to be carried and planted
elsewhere.
There is a weed that is easy to recognize, a member of the
pink family, that has attracted my attention in recent days
perhaps because there appear to be more of them in our raspberry
patch this July than raspberry plants. It’s the bladder campion,
Silene Cucubalis (sy-LEE-nee cu-CU-ba-lis). As downright
beautiful as the flowers of this tough perennial are, this is not
one of my favorite weeds. You don’t simply pull it out of the
ground because its brittle stems will break off at ground level
every time. Like nearly all weeds they respond exceedingly well
to three conditions, full sunlight, disturbed soil and a lack of
competition from other plants. Provide these three conditions
and you’re bound to have plenty of weeds.
Early settlers likened the flowers of bladder campion to the
bladders of some of their livestock. Individual flowers consist
of five white petals that are deeply lobed or split and resemble
a "V." The flowers have bladder-like cases which are
actually fused and inflated sepals with 20 distinct pink to white
veins. Commonly the plants are less than 18 inches tall but we
came across some on our hike this morning that were close to
three feet high.
Now that I’ve pretty well recovered from a recent surgery it’s
time I take my turn pulling weeds in the garden. I’m reminded of
a Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme, "A man of words and not of
deeds is like a garden full of weeds!"
Bladder campion weeds, beautiful as they are, dot the
countryside and are here to stay.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 07/17/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
