What is this weed called?

 


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It is an absolute nightmare in my garden, it's everywhere! I think it's
chickweed, but can anyone confirm this, and state what type it is?




--
Terri
Louise

 



Is it an ornamental garden, or a nutritional garden? Chickweed is very
nutritious, they can be added to salads whilst the cooked leaves can
scarcely be distinguished from spring spinach.
<http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Stellaria+media>
Would you like it better if it was wrapped in plastic, and came from the
frozen food section of your local supermarket at $2.50/package?

Chickweed was reportedly used at times for food. Chickweed enjoys a
reputation as treating a wide spectrum of conditions in folk medicine,
ranging from asthma and indigestion to skin diseases. Traditional
Chinese herbalists used a tea made from chickweed to treat nosebleeds.
<http://www.holisticonline.com/herbal-med/_Herbs/h45.htm>

I have some in germinating as I type, along with some purslane. I am
envious of your luck.

Congratulations! Don't screw it up.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

 

wrote:


I agree on chickweed. It doesn't like the heat and will be gone soon
here in middle TN. I'm hoping a mowed patch comes back enough before
then so I can harvest some - it's great for the skin.

 



It doesn't look like chickweed to me. Chickweed leaves are pointed.
Chickweed leaves are always in twos. But then UK chickweed may be different
than US chickweed. And it may bloom later over there. Here it would have
bloomed by now and the flowers look like:

http://foragingpictures.com/plants/Chickweed/h0013.htm

Don <www.donwiss.com> (e-mail link at home page bottom).

 


In the UK chickweed applies to Stellaria media (common chickweed),
Stellaria pallida (lesser chickweed) and Stellaria neglecta (greater
chickweed), Holosteum umbellatum (jagged chickweed), Myosoton aquaticum
(water chickweed) and Moenchia erecta (upright chickweed).

There is also a chickweed wintergreen (Trientalis europaeus).

Stellaria media is the common one.

Wikipedia adds Cerastium and Paronychia to the mix, so that might be
part of US usage (I just call Cerastium mouse-ear, rather than mouse-ear
chickweed, and Paronychia is not native to the UK.) Wikipedia also gives
star chickweed for Stellaria pubera (an eastern American plant).

I don't see any reason to think that the identification of this plant as
chickweed is correct, even with the vagaries of vernacular names.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley