Hi folks!

I've been trying to identify some common city weeds in Birmingham, which I find very attractive, but are a royal pain in the jacksy to get rid of. So far I have done wonders with the help of my super-RHS dad, but even he has had problems with a few.

Some of our successes have been Green Alkanet ("it looks like a cross between a forget-me-not and borage" - prize went to the internet geek) and crow's-foot geranium (prize went to the gnome / dad).

This one, however has me stuck. It has beautiful lace and pale yellow flowers, no wider then 10mm, leaves are approx 60mm wide, and it attaches itself to our privet hedge & potatoes by fine tendrills. In July / August it started to produce bright pillar-box berries, each with a single seed (as far as I could tell).

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Much hopefulness & positive vibes

The Gardening Gibbon

In article m,
gardengibbon writes
snip

This one, however has me stuck. It has beautiful lace and pale yellow
flowers, no wider then 10mm, leaves are approx 60mm wide, and it
attaches itself to our privet hedge & potatoes by fine tendrills. In
July / August it started to produce bright pillar-box berries, each
with a single seed (as far as I could tell).

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Wild guess - white bryony? Bryonia cretica.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

Brilliant - looks about right, and the tendrils & leaf certainly do resemble the cucumber's.

Much appreciated.

Jon

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article m,
gardengibbon writes
snip

This one, however has me stuck. It has beautiful lace and pale yellow
flowers, no wider then 10mm, leaves are approx 60mm wide, and it
attaches itself to our privet hedge & potatoes by fine tendrills. In
July / August it started to produce bright pillar-box berries, each
with a single seed (as far as I could tell).

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Wild guess - white bryony? Bryonia cretica.

I'm bothered about that. The leaf shape does not look right to me.
What about one of the nightshades?

[Franz Heymann]

The message m
from gardengibbon contains these
words:

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Most ISPs strip out binaries from non-binary news. Your picture went to
be bit-bucket if you posted it.

The pic on the website is certainly not of white bryony, and the leaves
look like black bryony, though I don't remember the tendrils being quite
so prominent.

--
Rusty http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm
horrid·squeak snailything zetnet·co·uk excange d.p. with p to reply.

In article , Franz Heymann
writes

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article m,
gardengibbon writes
snip

This one, however has me stuck. It has beautiful lace and pale yellow
flowers, no wider then 10mm, leaves are approx 60mm wide, and it
attaches itself to our privet hedge & potatoes by fine tendrills. In
July / August it started to produce bright pillar-box berries, each
with a single seed (as far as I could tell).

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Wild guess - white bryony? Bryonia cretica.

I'm bothered about that. The leaf shape does not look right to me.
What about one of the nightshades?

Agreed - not quite 'ivy leaf' shaped enough, but I wondered if maybe
there is a juvenile leaf form, like mulberries.

Not a nightshade, surely? Red berries would be woody nightshade and the
leaf shape and texture is wrong, and the nightshades twine, they don't
have tendrils.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

In article , Rusty Hinge
writes
The message m
from gardengibbon contains these
words:

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Most ISPs strip out binaries from non-binary news. Your picture went to
be bit-bucket if you posted it.

The pic on the website is certainly not of white bryony, and the leaves
look like black bryony, though I don't remember the tendrils being quite
so prominent.

You're right there! Black bryony doesn't have tendrils.
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article , Franz Heymann
writes

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article m,
gardengibbon writes
snip

This one, however has me stuck. It has beautiful lace and pale yellow
flowers, no wider then 10mm, leaves are approx 60mm wide, and it
attaches itself to our privet hedge & potatoes by fine tendrills. In
July / August it started to produce bright pillar-box berries, each
with a single seed (as far as I could tell).

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Wild guess - white bryony? Bryonia cretica.

I'm bothered about that. The leaf shape does not look right to me.
What about one of the nightshades?

Agreed - not quite 'ivy leaf' shaped enough, but I wondered if maybe
there is a juvenile leaf form, like mulberries.

Not a nightshade, surely? Red berries would be woody nightshade and the
leaf shape and texture is wrong, and the nightshades twine, they don't
have tendrils.

You are quite right. What a silly piece of bad observation on my part. I
think I, too, would now settle for Bryony. Perhaps gardengibbon could let
us see a picture of a mature leaf or two. I must say that the picture
he/she has shown so far is of excellent quality.

[Franz Heyman]

"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...
The message m
from gardengibbon contains these
words:

Here (should be attached) is a picture.

Most ISPs strip out binaries from non-binary news. Your picture went to
be bit-bucket if you posted it.

The pic on the website is certainly not of white bryony, and the leaves
look like black bryony, though I don't remember the tendrils being quite
so prominent.

According to my book, Black Bryony does not have tendrils. It uses its stem
for twining.
I also am unhappy with Rusty's suggestion that the leaves look like Black
Bryony. The latter have a smooth heart-shaped leaf, whilst gardengibbon's
illustration has leaves each of which has seven unmistakable apices, joined
by nearly straight lines in outline.

I still look forward to seeing a picture of one or two more mature leaves
from gardengibbon's plant.

[Franz Heymann]


--
Rusty http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm
horrid·squeak snailything zetnet·co·uk excange d.p. with p to
reply.

"....... I must say that the picture he/she has shown so far is of
excellent quality ......."
What picture? must have missed that

--
David Hill
Abacus nurseries
www.abacus-nurseries.co.uk

Hello people

Many thanks for the response on this one, you are all so helpful - I will be trying to encourage my dad to get a computer, using this site as part of my case for getting one - I've got a few old machines scattered around the house, he can have one of those.

The leaf on the top left of the image is the mature leaf of the bunch (showing underside, with veins exposed). I have attached a new image, of an old leaf (this came off the compost pile, so it's a little damaged).

The images have been made by scanning the leaves on an old Epson A4 flatbed scanner (you'd be surprised what you can scan!) and then adjusting the brightness up by 50% in Photoshop (or any image / photo package really), re-sizing to approx 500px wide / 72dpi.

The majority of the seed deposits in that area of the garden seem to be made by magpies, blackbirds, tits and sparrows, as the top end of the garden is shaded by a beautiful old laburnum tree, which is a popular vantage point, especially for the magpies. It is also a south facing corner of the garden, complete with a so has its own little micro climate, ideal for fruit and warmth loving plants. It also has the bonus of being near the compost, and so the soil is very rich in nutrients. All in all, it seems to be a fine are for collecting bird scattered seedlings. We also get a lot of laburnum seedlings!

I had a search around on Google and found the following link: http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/brywhi77.html which seemed to describe the plant fairly accurately, and the picture is bang on.

Anyway, thanks again, you're all stars, thanks for your time and wonderful replies.

Jon

David Hill wrote:

"....... I must say that the picture he/she has shown so far is of
excellent quality ......."
What picture? must have missed that

http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/attach...?postid=257740
//
Jim

Looks like Bryony to me.. AFAIK its the only native cucurbit Genus in
the UK. Unless its something 'escaped' I'd be willing to say 'its
Bryony'.. Fast growing Curcurbits, esp species often have variable
leaves in my experience.
//
Jim

"David Hill" wrote in message
...
"....... I must say that the picture he/she has shown so far is of
excellent quality ......."
What picture? must have missed that

He gave the following URL
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| Attachment filename: vine.jpg |
|View attachment:
http://www.gardenbanter.co.uk/attach...?postid=257740|
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

[Franz Heymann]