It's already mid May and the weeds have taken over my life. The daily walk involves constant ripping out of invasive plants. I carry buckets with handles my friend, Janet, gave me 2 years, ago. I'm seeing more and more of new uninvited plants. And in my old age of sometimes becoming forgetful, I've spent hours trying to figure out what these strange plants are. There was a plant I sowed, and forgot about it. I was sure I'd sprinkled chamomile by the old strawberry patch, but this looked different and possibly invasive because what I had last year unbeknownst to me scattered so many seeds that there were seedlings everywhere. Some were what looked like second year plants. I had to ask a plant ID group on Facebook to help me ID it. I was told it was most likely German Chamomile. Then I went through old packs of seeds. What did I find? An open pack of GERMAN chamomile from 2019. I had bought it from MiGardener, an online seed company. Never again. I've been hoeing and pulling them out of a large area I need for summer veggies.
Hundreds of small seedlings were everywhere. and then there were giant thick clumps of it with flower buds in mid May. I can't risk an invasive of these right where I grow veggies.
Today it reached 70 degrees. Finally finished sowing the Spring bed yesterday (May 12) and needed to do a lot of cleaning up on the north side of property. Mowed some Zoysia and some Fescue areas. I've temporarily moved all the potted trees in my little tree farm to the herb garden so I can clear out the aggravating brambles coming from under the fence from the nice neighbor's property.
Before understanding what a bract is, it is helpful to understand what it is not. First, it is not a part of the "flower" by definition. Complete flowers are composed of four parts: sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils. A bract is none of these.
Neither is a bract a leaf, although it is sometimes defined as a leaflike structure. Bracts usually differ in shape or color from leaves, and they function differently. Leaves may be anywhere along the stem while bracts are generally located on a stem just below a flower, a flower stalk, or an inflorescence.
Flowers may arise between bracts, flowers may be separated from bracts, and bracts can be present without flowers. Bracts can be leaflike as in poinsettias, scale-like as on pinecone gingers and bromeliads, or even petal-like as on dogwoods. Several familiar flowers have bracts. The dogwood inflorescence, for instance, consists of a cluster of tiny flowers. Surrounding the actual flowers are showy, petal-like bracts. Once observers are able to identify the basic flower parts, (sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils), they can figure that if other plant parts that are neither these nor leaves, fruits, needles, or cones, they just might be bracts. Recognizing specific plants that have bracts and being able to identify them will help to identify bracts in unfamiliar flowers. All it takes is careful inspection and a bit of basic understanding of plant parts.
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Another terrible invasive I've seen this year in my garden (that is growing in the nice neighbor's yard) is
Lamium purpureum, Purple Dead Nettle
Oxalis stricta - common yellow Sorrel
I don't mind this too much. It's a native plant and low growing. It's kind of sweet! I pull as many as I can though.
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And finally, I was dismayed to see that on the southern side of property the Garlic Mustard is back. I had it in the far northern corner with the invasive English ivy but it just disappeared one year. Now it's here on the neighbor's side. I have to rip all of this out. I do NOT want it. It's creeping by the dirt driveway, now. This is so invasive and in full flower.
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