Plant or Weed

Hello>
Can anyone let me know if this is a plant or weed? It is growing all over my garden

Sorry, I say It's a weed. I don't expect anything showy from that. It would make nice compost right about now.

Hi Sally
Thank you for taking time to answer my question. I am trying to make a list of the weeds and plants that I find on my property . I tried looking in Weeds of the Northeast but they don't show any weed similar to this. Do you know any site that I can go to that may be helpful in naming this weed?
Lenore

Off hand, I don't know. I'm thinking your weed looks familiar to me, like I've had it or seen it. You might look up wild lettuce, or fireweed, and see if we get lucky . I'll look for my Rodale weed book.
Is the plant pretty juicy and soft? Any sign of flower buds?

we get a thistle that looks like that. are the edges or stems prickly?

I don't think it's wild lettuce

Yah, I don't know why I have this wild lettuce fixation. I was reading a thread in Plant ID recently and that might have been what was fireweed, can't find the thread now to refer back, but this plant here is not currently in my yard so I don't really know it.
Have you tried your state university Ag Dept. for a weed ID list?
Since you have lots, you might leave some to flower and see for sure. If you like it, let it go to seed and you'll probably have tons again .
Look around in nearby uncultivated places with similar conditions and see it its there also.

Thank you for your responses
The edges are not sticky or prickly. It doesn't show sighns of flowering. The leaves are soft and seem fragile to touch. I am sure that it is not wild lettuce. The oddest thing about it is so far my yard is the only one that seems to have it. Tomorrow I will check the uncultivated places in my area. Maybe I will be lucky.

rutgers university has a site i have found very helpful:
http://njaes.rutgers.edu/weeds/
it lets you search via thumbnails, which i found made my life much easier.

i live in CT, and one for wildflowers - which sometimes can be weeds, is:
http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/galleryindex.html

but it is harder to search. the rutgers one is the most useful i have found...

amy
*

I have checked both sites but was unable to find anything similar. The plant (or weed) has grown. Look how the upper leaves have changed shape.

Here is another view of the stem

From what I can see it looks like it might be some wild lettuce variety. Does it excrete milk then punctured?

It does look like a wild lettuce variety however, the plant does not excrete milk when punctured. The only thing it seems to do is grow.Im not giving up. I am still searching. I have seen in it a couple of times on the roadside. We just purchased the "Revised Checklist Of NY State Plants". It does list the plants according to county. I am hoping it will be helpful.

I have a plant like that in my garden. It is similar. It is a bamboo like plant with knots in stem.

Wait never mind. That is another plant I'n my yard I have wanted to indentify for years.
I do have one in my yard though that looks like the one you have.

Dont think I am trying to put a spanner in the works here, but the stems and the base of them remind me of the nightshade family, if you dig one up, does it have a kind of tubery bulb root to it, if so, it could be nightshade of a sort, if it is, wash your hands after handling it, seem to recognise it from somewhere so it is bugging me too, will keep thinking about it and get back to you. WeeNel.

I sure hope they are weeds, because we have been pulling them and tossing them.
They flourish if you do not pull them and can choke out a good plant in no time!

It looks like my weed may be getting a flower. Are these flower buds?

Yeah it is definitely a type of wild lettuce. The flowers will be pale yellow. I have one growing in my yard similar to that, but same buds.

I thought it may be some sort of wild lettuce becuase it has a lettuce-like leaf but whenever I research lettuce or wild lettuce, they mention that when the stem is cut it should secrete a milky substance. When I cut any part of this weed the subtance that it secretes is clear not milky. We cut the stem of the prickley wild lettuce just to see the difference and it definately secreted a milky substance. o all lettuce varieties secrete milky substance or just some? I am lost.

I looked up Lactuca L. in the "Revised Checklist of New York State Plants" . They list the following: Lactuca biennis (wild lettuce, blue lettuce)...Lactuca biennis x canadensis (wild lettuce)...Lactuca canadensis L.(wild lettuce, giant lettuce)...Lactuca floridiana L. (false lettuce)...Lactuca hirsuta (downy lettuce)... Lactuca muralis (wall lettuce)...Lactuca saligna L. (willow-leaf lettuce)...Lactuca sativa L. (garden lettuce)... Lactuca serriola L. (prickly lettuce)...and Lactuca tatarica L. (blue lettuce);;;;;;(I am all lactucad out);;;;
None of these are similar to my weed. I am not giving up. Next week I am going to the Brooklyn Botanical garden. They have an expert there who is familiar with all weeds.

This message was edited Aug 5, 2007 12:17 PM

Nice. It will probably lactate when it gets a little older. I hope you find out what it is.

If this is the same weed that I find in my garden, it can grow to be very large. I've pulled some up that were hiding under hydrangea that were several feet tall. The stems get to be pretty large. It doesn't have a bulb, but a long stringy root.

Unfortunately, I don't have a name for it either.

I have not been able to go to the botanical gardens yet. I have become quite obsessive with this weed. It is now about thrree feet tall. I love watching it transform. Now it looks like a tall groundsel. I wonder if it is related to the senecio species. Here is a picture of the buds now.

One of them has started to bloom .

Be careful that thing does not go to seed and if it is a weed you are going to have it everywhere! Good Luck!

I didn' t expect purple--- If it opens pretty, great, and if it just lingers and goes to seed, grab right away and trash. Hmm, blue lettuce? I wonder if that name refers to flower color.

Nice

I Have finally found the answer to my question. I was looking through the pictures of "Wildflowers of the Eastern US and low and behold there was a picture of my plant. It is a wildflower known as Fireweed or Pilewort or American burnweed. (Asteraceae) Erechtites hieracifolia. I had been looking in the weed books instead of wildflower books.

Persistence does pay off after all. Congratulations!!

Karen

When sallyg mentioned fireweed 7/19 , I assumed it was a "weed". In the weed books it was a totally different plant. The internet didn't help because it showed a different flower for fireweed. I should have checked my wildflower guide and my question would have been answered earlier.

This message was edited Aug 24, 2007 10:23 AM

I am in a similar situation and have something that looks very similar. But everything I have seen so far on the internet points to a wild lettuce variety and not the American Burnweed(see below, I think I found the Burnweed earlier in the summer)

Need ID(Wild Lettuce?) This just cropped up in the past 2 weeks:
http://maryandted.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=14605

I went crazy several months back trying to identify Fireweed or American Burnweed (Erechtites hieracifolia) and documented as best I could with pictures in this gallery here(I never let mine go to bloom):
http://maryandted.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=13372

Also here's a link to some good pictures of it's leaves here:
http://www.missouriplants.com/Whitealt/Erechtites_hieracifolia_page.html

The Burnweed has completely different shaped leaves(lanceolate) than the Wild Lettuce(serrate?). Once yours went to bloom LenoreFig it still looks to me like Lactuca virosa(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactuca_virosa) with a different color bloom. There must be different varieties of this Burnweed around the country...some with more lanceolate leaves and some with more serrate? Now I'm completely confused.