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Plant vs. Bike
Summer is drawing to a close in the northern hemisphere. Days are getting shorter. Nights are getting cooler. Fall flowers are beginning to bloom. And bicycles are getting more flat tires. As an avid...
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Tales of Weedy Waterhemp and Weedy Rice
This is the eighth in a series of posts reviewing the 17 articles found in the October 2014 Special Issue of American Journal of Botany, Speaking of Food: Connecting Basic and Applied Science....
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Ethnobotany: White Man’s Foot
“Plantains – Plantago major – seem to have arrived with the very first white settlers and were such a reliable sign of their presence that the Native Americans referred to them as ‘white men’s...
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Weeds and Wildflowers of the Boise Foothills: June 2015
Boise, Idaho is a beautiful city for many reasons. One feature that makes it particularly attractive are the foothills that flank the city from the southeast to the northwest. The foothills are a...
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What Shall We Do About Invasive Species?
I think about invasive species a lot. This blog doesn’t really reflect that though. I have been avoiding a deep dive into the subject mainly because there is so much to say about it and I don’t really...
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Ethnobotany: White Man’s Foot, part two
Earlier this year, as part of the ethnobotany series, I wrote about plantains (Plantago spp.), of which at least one species is commonly referred to as white man’s foot (or some version of that). Since...
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In Defense of Weeds – A Book Review
Weeds have been with us since the beginning of human civilization. We created them, really. We settled down, started growing food, urbanized, and in doing so we invited opportunistic plant species to...
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The Nippleworts of Camassia Natural Area
This is a guest post. Words and illustration by Mesquite Cervino. At the end of a residential neighborhood that is barely off the 205 in the hills of West Linn, Oregon is a small, 26 acre preserve...
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Tomato vs. Dodder, or When Parasitic Plants Attack
At all points in their lives, plants are faced with a variety of potential attackers. Pathogenic organisms like fungi, bacteria, and viruses threaten to infect them with diseases. Herbivores from all...
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2016: Year in Review
2016 was another busy year at Awkward Botany headquarters. A major highlight was the response I received from the Help Wanted announcement that I posted early last year. Several people expressed...
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Introducing Invasive Species
The terms “invasive” or “invasive species” get thrown around a lot. They are frequently used to describe anything that is “misbehaving,” or acting in a way that doesn’t fit our idealized vision for how...
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Eating the Invasives
Happy National Invasive Species Awareness Week! It’s a fine time to get educated about invasive species, and perhaps even play a role in mitigating them. Opportunities for getting involved are myriad...
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Introducing the Summer of Weeds
I spent the first five months of this year posting almost exclusively about invasive species. There is still plenty more to say on the topic, and I’m sure I will get back to that. However, it is time...
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Summer of Weeds: Henbit and Purple Deadnettle
There are weeds for every season. Now that we are heading into the hot days of summer, spring weeds (if they haven’t already) are fading. There is a parallel between them and the spring wildflowers we...
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Summer of Weeds: Pineapple Weed
“The spread of the fruitily perfumed pineapple weed, which arrived in Britain from Oregon in 1871, exactly tracked the adoption of the treaded motor tyre, to which its ribbed seeds clung as if they...
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Summer of Weeds: Salsify
Picking a favorite weed is challenging. If we dismiss entirely the idea that a person is not supposed to like weeds, the challenge is not that “favorite weeds” is an oxymoron; it is, instead, that it...
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Book Review: Weeds Find a Way
At what age do we become aware that there are profound differences among the plants we see around us? That some are considered good and others evil. Or that one plant belongs here and another doesn’t....
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Summer of Weeds: Common Mullein
The fuzzy, gray-green leaves of common mullein are familiar and friendly enough that it can be hard to think of this plant as a weed. Verbascum thapsus is a member of the figwort family and is known by...
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Summer of Weeds: Eating Purslane
If it wasn’t so prolific and persistent, purslane would probably be a welcome guest in our vegetable gardens and edible landscapes. Easily among the most nutritious and versatile of the edible weeds,...
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Summer of Weeds: Plantains
This is a revised version of two ethnobotany posts that appeared previously on Awkward Botany: White Man’s Foot, part one and part two. Plantains have a long history of ethnobotonical uses, as well as...
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