Thursday, April 6, 2006

The plant that turns the fields purple in spring

I have searched the Internet and can't find out what kind of weed it is that turns the fields purple in April.  One farmer up the road said he likes the purple fields so much, he waits to apply herbicide until the plants are done blooming.

If anyone knows the name of this weed... and yes, it IS a weed... I'd love to know.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

well what the difference between a weed and a wild flower... our dandelions are weeds in the lawn but in the book they are a wild flower. We have a beautiful "weed" here but they keep getting volunteers to pull them out... a beautiful purple flower but they are invasive so they are called a weed... Is yours some kind of Vetch?  reminds me of a crown  vetch but I could be wrong as I didn't look it up. Our "weeds" are called purple loostrife. Not sure of spelling though. :)

Anonymous said...

Gee, I know exactly what weed your talking about but I can't help you with the name.  I'm sorry!
Missie

Anonymous said...

oops... I just looked up crown vetch and that is not it..... :)

Anonymous said...

Ever the wildflower hunter (okay, weed hunter)  I took this opportunity to grab my Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers.  Took a stroll through the pages and came up with Henbit.  Seemed to be if not the plant, close.  Then researched on google and came up with this:  

http://www.turf.uiuc.edu/weed_web/descriptions/henbit.htm

This link gives a description and some pictures.  Tell me what you think!  

Anonymous said...

Me too!  They are all over my yard!
Traci

Anonymous said...

My husband tells me the definition of the word weed is: "any unwanted plant". So I suppose if you had an Iris in your ROSE garden....then the Iris would be a weed....is this correct?  LOL.

From the looks of those pictures I would say it's a "weedicus purplicticus" .....that's just MY observation!  

Anonymous said...

Donna, there was a picture of this weed in the local paper and it was called chickweed. if you will call your local county agent he will be able to identify it for you.

Anonymous said...

I'll have to look, I think we have that up here too in the yard.  Linda

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I read the other entry before reading this one. The henbit is pretty. Been busy today and reading the lasts journal entry's  before the first ones. Guess I sounded stupid with my comment in the other entry. Helen

Anonymous said...

don't know but it sure is pretty!
Becky

Anonymous said...

it is either henbit or deadnettle. Deadnettle has purple on the upper leaves.
We had them in our yard every spring.
We have a horrible yellow flower that fills the fields up arouind here in the spring. If you dont cut it you wont get any grass.