Interesting weed, ID help?

[R.C. Keely]

I'm in southern Ontario, Canada; hoping someone is familiar with this
plant (weed?) that has a "throwing" mechanism:

About 6 inches tall, is growing in patches in dry sunny areas, has pale
green, sparse needle-like leaves less than 1" long on upright stalks...
I noticed for the first time today its interesting ability to hurl many
small projectiles when the plant is lightly touched or walked on. It
throws them a couple feet up and out. They must be seeds of some kind,
but on examination appear as tiny green coils or springs, 2-3 mm in
size... does this ring a bell with anyone?

Thanks,
Rebecca
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[Jim Elbrecht]

"R.C. Keely" > wrote:

>I'm in southern Ontario, Canada; hoping someone is familiar with this
>plant (weed?) that has a "throwing" mechanism:
>
>About 6 inches tall, is growing in patches in dry sunny areas, has pale
>green, sparse needle-like leaves less than 1" long on upright stalks...
>I noticed for the first time today its interesting ability to hurl many
>small projectiles when the plant is lightly touched or walked on. It
>throws them a couple feet up and out. They must be seeds of some kind,
>but on examination appear as tiny green coils or springs, 2-3 mm in
>size... does this ring a bell with anyone?
>

Perhaps Jewelweed? Also called 'Touch-me-not' in our part of the
world. [Upstate NY] We used the flowers as earrings when kids, and
I've used the juice to neutralize poison ivy juice with apparent
success.

http://altnature.com/jewelweed.htm

[this is an ad for a tincture that uses Jewelweed. I have no
experience with it, I use the juice straight from the plant. The
site has a good picture though.]

Jim

[Penny Morgan]

Sounds exactly like what we used to call wild "vetch". We had it all over
our farm in upstate NY (Champlain) bordering Canada and Vermont.

I moved to Raleigh, NC eight years ago and it's quite common here too. I
just sprayed some that is growing like crazy under my front porch and trying
to invade my front flower beds. It weaves itself into plants and bushes
and tries to choke them. It does send out those small coily springs that
you mentioned too.

Someone else may have a different name for it.

Penny
Zone 7b - North Carolina
"R.C. Keely" > wrote in message
.. .
> I'm in southern Ontario, Canada; hoping someone is familiar with this
> plant (weed?) that has a "throwing" mechanism:
>
> About 6 inches tall, is growing in patches in dry sunny areas, has pale
> green, sparse needle-like leaves less than 1" long on upright stalks...
> I noticed for the first time today its interesting ability to hurl many
> small projectiles when the plant is lightly touched or walked on. It
> throws them a couple feet up and out. They must be seeds of some kind,
> but on examination appear as tiny green coils or springs, 2-3 mm in
> size... does this ring a bell with anyone?
>
> Thanks,
> Rebecca
> --
> Get the lead out to reply by email.

[Jim Elbrecht]

"R.C. Keely" > wrote:
-snip-
>About 6 inches tall, is growing in patches in dry sunny areas,

-snip-

I'm going to have another cup of coffee and agree with Penny.

Vetch fits your description.
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/invasive/factsheets/crown.htm

Other than being taller, with different leaves, different habit,
different colored flowers, and liking to have its 'feet wet',
Jewelweed was a pretty good guess.<g> [At least it does throw it
seeds--- that is about all they have in common.]

Jim

[R.C. Keely]

> I'm going to have another cup of coffee and agree with Penny.
>
> Vetch fits your description.
> http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/invasive/factsheets/crown.htm
>
> Other than being taller, with different leaves, different habit,
> different colored flowers, and liking to have its 'feet wet',
> Jewelweed was a pretty good guess.<g> [At least it does throw it
> seeds--- that is about all they have in common.]

Hmmm... no, it doesn't really look like either vetch or jewelweed but I
gave a poor description, I know. I saw it at a farm yesterday so I'm
going on memory.

The leaves are more like needles, but soft, and the plant is upright,
not creeping or twining. The little coils it throws aren't visible
when you look at it; it seems to create them from the straight needles
somehow when it's touched. It's some interesting mechanism... if I ran
my hand up the plant, I could feel it "snapping" to make the little
coils and it throws them quite far.

I am looking at some photo databases, it must be there somewhere... ;-)
Thank you both.

Rebecca
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[animaux]

Do a search for horse nettle.

[R.C. Keely]

animaux wrote:

> Do a search for horse nettle.

This turned up pictures of a plant with large broad leaves. I need
something small and with sparse needle-like leaves, are you sure you
meant horse nettle?

Rebecca
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[animaux]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 20:29:22 GMT, "R.C. Keely" >
wrote:

>animaux wrote:
>
>> Do a search for horse nettle.
>
>This turned up pictures of a plant with large broad leaves. I need
>something small and with sparse needle-like leaves, are you sure you
>meant horse nettle?
>
>Rebecca

Can you describe it again? I'm sorry, I don't think I saw the original
message.

[R.C. Keely]

>>animaux wrote:
>>
>>> Do a search for horse nettle.
>>
>>This turned up pictures of a plant with large broad leaves. I need
>>something small and with sparse needle-like leaves, are you sure you
>>meant horse nettle?
>>
>>Rebecca
>
> Can you describe it again? I'm sorry, I don't think I saw the
> original message.

The weed is pale green, small (6-8") and upright with needle-like leaves
about an inch long or less. It grows as a sparse clump of stems that
don't seem to branch much, with the needles radiating off the stems. The
things it throws when you touch it are tiny tight coils, maybe 2-4mm in
size (1/16 inches?) It throws them a couple feet up and out even if just
lightly touched.

I've seen this stuff a million times, I just never noticed its ability
to throw these spores before (I always thought bugs were jumping off it,
rather than the plant throwing something.) I have looked through a bunch
of weed databases and can't find a picture that looks much like it.
However I did find an old usenet posting from someone who seems to be
describing the same plant. Unfortunately nobody replied:

> From: John Barrett )
> Subject: Unidentified Weed - How to control
> Newsgroups: rec.gardens
> Date: 1996/05/06
> I was finally weeding all my landscaping yesterday and found this new
> (at least to me) weed which seems to have taken over! It has "needles"
> about 1/2 - 1 inch long and when you brush up against it, seems to
> "explode" and shoot small, yellowish spores all over the place. Does
> anyone know what it is and once I pull all of it (which causes more
> spores to shoot out), will Preen or something similar prevent these
> spores from growing?

I was glad to find this post. I was starting to think I imagined the
whole thing. ;-)
Rebecca
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