Comment by danwills | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danwills | Hacker News Reader

I love the idea that all the plants we think-of as totally-normal-weeds could be (indeed, are) quite different across the world! Would love to be able to get a global sense of where the ones that I know well are distributed right now, and what other people are seeing when they walk-around (and it's rained a bit) instead! Anyone know of a good resource for anything like that?

Over in Adelaide, South Oz, an extremely common weed is 'Oxalis' (TIL: a type of 'Wood Sorrel'[1]) It's also called 'Sourgrass' or 'Sour-Sobs', colloquially around here. It seems to pop up nearly-anywhere-that-it-can and very quickly too once it's rained a bit at the start of winter. Also dies-off completely for a good chunk of the year and I think it has a bulb-like way (as well as its tiny seeds) of staying-there.

We also have bigger-than-garden-level problems (in the state) with stuff like Gorse, Broom, Blackberry (which seems especially invasive), Patterson's Curse, loads more! Heck even Nasturtium gets a pretty-good-go around here, though it's apparently not considered invasive yet [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropaeolum_majus

I’m in Adelaide and was thinking this week that agapanthus has to be the most socially accepted weed (or close enough) in town. I can appreciate the value of greenery in a dry location though.

I have jasmine as a ground over and sour sobs through it are very difficult to weed out each year. Drives me nuts.

Those from the article that we get here are thistle and mallow AFAIK.

I couldn't agree more! Agapanthas are absolutely-everywhere around Adelaide but it's hard to call it a 'weed' when people are actively-planting-them all-over-the-place! (they love our climate but I don't think they are too-invasive, thank-goodness!!!)

Sure, it's a hardy-AF plant in SA (stays green, yaay) but it also completely dominates the landscape that it grows in, and has a particular smell (I'd call a stink, surely there are some that probably like the smell, so this is just an opinion).

I guess it also just doesn't seem to be going-anywhere to me, sorta stuck in its meme, especially if it's meant to be there as an ornamental plant. I know it has lots of plant-relatives over in Southern Africa where it is from.. and there's some cool variety there.. where's the breeding? It seems like people in SA planting them everywhere just fell into some default-standard-Agapantha-attractor and can't climb-out. Seems like a bit of a lack of imagination to me.

Yeah definitely see mallow around Adelaide quite a bit too!

The photo for what the article called thistle looked a bit more like a dandylion-of-sorts to me, I'd usually expect thistle to be spikier, but maybe this is what young ones do look like? I've certainly seen some (very spiky, vaguely artichoke-like) thistles about in SA as well!

Mallow is very common on farms and vacant blocks. Not overly ugly en masse at least.

I think there might be a huge variety of thistle forms. You get the gamut from small and smooth up to the thicker, spikier ones as far as Scotch Thistles, plus low, flat ones that escape the mower like stemless thistle - https://www.google.com/search?q=stemless+thistle&tbm=isch

In a backyard garden sense, I can cope with thistles, but things that infest soil like soursobs, mint, dichondra can get annoying. Watsonia, ivy and couch grass also give me grief.

There is an plant app I use thar will identify plants. Just take a picture of it. It tells you what it thinks the plant is and some other similar options. You get to select the winner by "adding to your garden" button. it tracks the plants in your garden.

One of the pieces of information the app gives you is what is the plant considered every where in the world. The types of categories I've seen on it are native, cultivated, exotic, invasive, and potentially invasive. The app is called Picture This. I do not want to endorse it, cause it is annoying to use sometimes. But I cannot lie that it has been extremely useful. I am very close to paying for it, since as a fellow programmer I understand the people making this need to make a living.

PSA: plant identification is built into the native iOS photo viewer. If it detects something the little circled “i” button will have magic sparkles added and you can see what it thinks is pictured.

_Lots_ of oxalis around in California too!

The leaves are edible (but sour, as its nicknames suggest) and can make a nice addition to a salad.

Oxalis is a whole genus. There are native Oxalis, California has California woodsorrel, Oregon has Redwood woodsorrel. But there are invasive ones like Bermuda buttercup and Creeping sorrel.

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