while i was mowing...

[Linda]

the yard which had been a while ... i found a lot of differant plant life...ragweed,pigweed,plantain,sumac.lychnis,bladder campion,daisiesmayweed, daisy fleabane, aster,sweet clover, red clover,yucca,peppergrass,milkweed,queen anne's lace,dandelion,buttercup,mullein,moth mullen,goldrod,curly dock,knapweed, burdock,ladys thumb,pokeweed,sour dock, then i have a grass type that has pussywillow like head, and another plant that has yellow flowers on it that i have been eating all my life and still don't know the name of it.

 

what i am going to try and do now it fine out what i can do with theses weed, eat them, medical uses or just plain use for decoratating.

[gardnmom]

I'll look them up for you..... some I believe I know but will double check

[Linda]

why thank you lois that is very kind of you.

 

 

[gardnmom]

Keep in mind it is wise to always verify that the plant is what you believe it to be, there are many look a likes...... Here is what I found

ragweed, aka Ambrosia mostly very allergenic…not useful that I can find.

pigweed, or Lambs quarters

This European immigrant is an odorless, branching, annual herb, with stalked, opposite, simple leaves which are clammy-feeling, unwettable, and have a whitish coating on the underside. The first leaves are roughly diamond-shaped and somewhat toothed toward the point, and the later leaves are narrow and toothless.

Lamb's-quarters was introduced to the U.S. as a pot-herb and now grows everywhere. It particularly likes disturbed soil, but it's not above growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. It generally grows from 1 to 3 feet tall, though it may reach over twice that height under favorable conditions. There are many similar edible species in this genus. The rule is: if it's odorless, it's food, and if it has a resiny smell, it's a spice.

The red tracing in the leaf in the lower right corner means that spinach leaf miner larvae live there. It's probably better not to eat those leaves

 

More here: http://www.cloudnet.com/~djeans/FlwPlant/Lambs-quarter.htm

 

plantain,Common Plantain Plantago major

Plantain Family: Plantaginaceae

Common Plantain came to the United States with the Europeans. The native Americans, observing its spread, named it "white man's footprint" or "Englishman's foot". Perhaps they saw the same resemblance to feet (or affinity for paths) as the Greeks. "Plantago" is derived from a Latin word meaning "sole of the foot". Plantain is now naturalized throughout the United States.

This is a perennial plant, which dies to the ground each winter and sprouts anew from its fibrous taproot around mid-spring. The oval, ribbed, short-stemmed leaves form basal rosettes which tend to hug the ground. The leaves may grow up to about 6" long and 4" wide. More here

http://www.cloudnet.com/~djeans/FlwPlant/CPlantain.htm

sumac. info is here http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/eng...l?Rhus_cor.html

 

lychnis, cannot find a listing for this

bladder campion, cannot find a listing for this

 

Daisies mayweed, closest I could find is this one: Characteristics:

Mayweed chamomile is a bushy, branched annual with a foul smell. As a plant, it is fairly attractive, but it spreads readily to become a pesky weed. Plants range from 10-60 cm tall. The twice to three-times pinnatifid leaves are 2-6 cm in length, with very narrow leaflets.

The flower heads are numerous, being found at the ends of the branches as well as in the leaf axils. The yellow disks are mostly 5-10 mm wide, surrounded by 10-20 white rays which range from 5-11 mm long. The involucre is sparsely hairy.

Found here http://ghs.gresham.k12.or.us/science/ps/na...y/cham/cham.htm

 

daisy fleabane, picture and description here: http://www.nativetech.org/plantgath/daisy.htm

 

aster,…. flower

sweet clover, Sweet clover - a biennial herb, growing to 5 feet, with many branches. Each leaf consists of three leaflets with toothed margins. Light yellow flowers of sweet clover grow in towering spikes (June-September) and are about 14 inch across. Sweet clover has a sweet vanilla smell that is more intense when the plant is dried.

More here: http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_sweet_clover.htm

 

red clover, Red clover, a wild plant used as grazing food for cattle and other livestock, has also been used medicinally to treat a wide array of conditions. These have included cancer, mastitis (inflammation of the breast), joint disorders, jaundice, bronchitis, spasmodic coughing, asthma, and skin inflammations, such as psoriasis and eczema. Red clover is thought to "purify" the blood by promoting urine and mucous production, improving circulation, and stimulating the secretion of bile. Recently, specific chemicals in red clover -- known as isoflavones -- have been isolated and tested for their effectiveness in treating a variety of conditions. Although isolated isoflavone products are very different from the whole herb, they have shown promise in the treatment of a number of conditions associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, cardiovascular health, and the bone loss associated with osteoporosis

More here http://www.healthandage.com/html/res/com/C...edCloverch.html

yucca, Yucca schidigera

Other Common Names: Mojave Yucca, Spanish Dagger, Yucca aloifolia, Yucca schidigera

Range: Southwestern N. America - California, Arizona and Nevada.

Habitat: Rocky desert slopes and Creosote desert flats below 7,000 feet.

About 30 species in the genus Yucca are found in North America, which includes the Joshua Tree.

Native Americans and Mexicans have used it for centuries to treat a wide variety of maladies, especially headaches, gonorrhea, arthritis and rheumatism. Indians used the yucca plant for many products. The strong fibers from the plant made cord, cloth, baskets and sandals. Raw flowers were eaten in salads, or boiled as vegetables. The immature pods were roasted and peeled before eating. Dried pods and seeds were ground into flour. The roots form a frothy soap that was both a cleansing agent and a skin cream used for treating rashes.

The properties of Yucca which help in arthritis and rheumatism are due to the plants' high content of steroid saponins, which are precursors to cortisone. More here:

http://www.geocities.com/nutriflip/Naturopathy/Yucca.html

 

peppergrass, Lepidium virginicum

Mustard family (Brassicaceae) This is a native plant in a family that is dominated by introduced plants from Eurasia. The various members of the Mustard family are often difficult to distinguish from each other. The most distinctive feature of this species is the rounded oval shape of the small flat seedpods, each with a tiny notch at the tip. The seedpods of similar species tend to be shaped somewhat differently, or have a larger size. Other kinds of mustards have long slender seedpods, called 'siliques,' with a very different appearance. The peppery young leaves of Common Peppergrass are edible, and can be added to salads. http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/...peppergrass.htm

 

milkweed, Asclepias The plant is used medicinally in the United States for the anodyne properties of its root and its rhizome and root have been employed successfully, like those of A. tuberosa, both in powder and infusion, in cases of asthma and typhus fever attended with catarrh, producing expectoration and relieving cough and pain. It has also been used in scrofula with great success. More here http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/ascle072.html

 

queen Anne’s lace, Wild carrot The medicinal properties of the seeds are owing to a volatile oil which is colourless or slightly tinged with yellow; this is procured by distilling with water. They also yield their virtues by infusion to water at 212 degrees F.; boiling dissipates them. No thorough analysis has been made.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Diuretic, stimulant deobstruent. An infusion of the whole herb is considered an active and valuable remedy in the treatment of dropsy, chronic kidney diseases and affections of the bladder. The infusion, made from 1 OZ. of the herb in a pint of boiling water, is taken in wineglassful doses. Carrot tea, taken night and morning, and brewed in this manner from the whole front, is considered excellent for a gouty disposition. A strong decoction is very useful in gravel and stone, and is good against flatulence. A fluid extract is also prepared, the dose being from 1/2 to 1 drachm.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/carwil25.html

dandelion, (\Taraxacum officinale The young leaves of the Dandelion make an agreeable and wholesome addition to spring salads and are often eaten on the Continent, especially in France. The full-grown leaves should not be taken, being too bitter, but the young leaves, especially if blanched, make an excellent salad, either alone or in combination with other plants, lettuce, shallot tops or chives.

Young Dandelion leaves make delicious sandwiches, the tender leaves being laid between slices of bread and butter and sprinkled with salt. The addition of a little lemon-juice and pepper varies the flavour. The leaves should always be torn to pieces, rather than cut, in order to keep the flavour http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dandel08.html

 

buttercup, http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/butcup97.html

mullein, Verbascum thapsus Parts Used---The leaves and flowers are the parts used medicinally.

Medicinal Action and Uses---The Mullein has very markedly demulcent, emollient and astringent properties, which render it useful in pectoral complaints and bleeding of the lungs and bowels. The whole plant seems to possess slightly sedative and narcotic properties.

It is considered of much value in phthisis and other wasting diseases, palliating the cough and staying expectoration, consumptives appearing to benefit greatly by its use, being given in the form of an infusion, 1 OZ. of dried, or the corresponding quantity of fresh leaves being boiled for 10 minutes in a pint of milk, and when strained, given warm, thrice daily, with or without sugar. The taste of the decoction is bland, mucilaginous and cordial, and forms a pleasant emollient and nutritious medicine for allaying a cough, or removing the pain and irritation of haemorrhoids. A plain infusion of 1 OZ. to a pint of boiling water can also be employed, taken in wineglassful doses frequently.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/m/mulgre63.html

 

moth mullein,..?

goldenrod, Solidago virgaurea Constituents---The plant contains tannin, with some bitter and astringent principles.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Aromatic, stimulant, carminative. Golden Rod is an ingredient in the Swiss Vulnerary, faltrank. It is astringent and diuretic and efficacious for stone in the bladder. It is recorded that in 1788 a boy of ten, after taking the infusion for some months, passed quantities of gravel, fifteen large stones weighing up to 1 1/4 OZ., and fifty over the size of a pea. It allays sickness due to weak digestion.

In powder it is used for cicatrization of old ulcers. It has been recommended in many maladies, as it is a good diaphoretic in warm infusion, and is in this form also helpful in dysmenorrhoea and amenorrhoea. As a spray and given internally, it is of great value in diphtheria.

---Dosage---1/2 to 1 drachm of the fluid extract.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/g/golrod26.html

 

curly dock, sour dock N.O. Polygonaceae

Patience Dock

Round-Leaved

Sharp-Pointed Dock

Yellow Dock

Red Dock

Great Water Dock http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/docks-15.html

 

knapweed, Centaurea nigra, the Black Knapweed, is a perennial, with an unwinged, erect stem, 6 inches to 3 feet high, generally freely branched in the upper part. The leaves are very variable, both in breadth and degrees of division, the upper ones narrow and generally with entire margins, but the lower ones lobed, or at any rate with some coarse teeth. The whole plant is dull green, rather rough with small hairs, the stems, like the preceding species, very tough. The flowers are without the spreading outer rays of the Greater Knapweed, the florets being all tubular, which makes the black fringes to the bracts of the involucre most noticeable, hence the name of the species. The florets are of a less bright purple in colour http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/k/knabla05.html

Knapweed, Greaterhttp://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/k/knagre06.html

 

burdock, Arctium lappa Parts Used Medicinally---The dried root from plants of the first year's growth forms the official drug, but the leaves and fruits (commonly, though erroneously, called seeds) are also used.

The roots are dug in July, and should be lifted with a beet-lifter or a deep-running plough. As a rule they are 12 inches or more in length and about 1 inch thick, sometimes, however, they extend 2 to 3 feet, making it necessary to dig by hand. They are fleshy, wrinkled, crowned with a tuft of whitish, soft, hairy leaf-stalks, grey-brown externally, whitish internally, with a somewhat thick bark, about a quarter of the diameter of the root, and soft wood tissues, with a radiate structure.

Burdock root has a sweetish and mucilaginous taste.

Medicinal Action and Uses---Alterative, diuretic and diaphoretic. One of the best blood purifiers. In all skin diseases, it is a certain remedy and has effected a cure in many cases of eczema, either taken alone or combined with other remedies, such as Yellow Dock and Sarsaparilla. http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/burdoc87.html

 

Listings I found are Ladies's Bedstraw

Lady's Mantle

Lady's Slipper

Lady's Trusses at http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/comindxl.html

 

pokeweed, http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Pokeweed.html

[Linda]

thank you lois that was a lot of searching, you did.

there is some of them that i had been eating all along. And oh, yes i check and double check those that we don't know. It is alway best to hear it again.

thank you again. your a sweetheart for doing it.