In article ,
(Cat) wrote:

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Whenever I've mow the greenmargin, I avoid harming this big weed, about
three feet tall & at least as wide. Though unmolested it never spreads
anywhere else, but is getting bigger every year. Here it is big & green in
April:

http://www.paghat.com/images/bigweedonstreet_ap.jpg
and here it is completely changed & rust-red in July:
http://www.paghat.com/images/bigroad...d_earlyjul.jpg
I find it very beautiful & would love to have a name for it.

Ugh. I'm afraid that I fall on the noxious weed side of things for
that one ; I suspect that it's curled dock:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/cro.../fab32s00.html

cheers!

Thanks, that certainly looked like it, so I looked up the genus, &amp
instantly found that it was not Crispy Dock per se (an introduced invasive
pest plant) but is Rumex occidentalis, native of right here on Puget Sound
(actually, from Alaska to California), bigger & branchier than R. crispus,
but never aggressive, which explains why in three years this one has never
seeded itself anywhere as crispy dock would, though every year it is just
loaded with seeds.

Granny Artemis agrees with you that it just looks like a weed & if I
hadn't been mowing around it, she wouldn't let it have its space. It still
strikes me as a beautiful & interesting plant, weed though it be.

I'm off to look up some more stuff about it. Looks like a useful plant --
native americans harvested it for food.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com