Soft rush or common rush (Juncus effusus) is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant species in the family Juncaceae. It is nearly cosmopolitan, considered native in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America, and naturalized in Australia, Madagascar, and various oceanic islands. It is found growing in wet areas, such as the purple moor-grass and rush pastures and fen-meadow plant associations in the United Kingdom.
t grows in large clumps about 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) tall at the water's edge along streams and ditches, but can be invasive anywhere with moist soil. It is commonly found growing in humus-rich areas like marshes, ditches, fens, and beaver dams.
The stems are smooth cylinders with light pith filling. The yellowish inflorescence appears to emerge from one side of the stem about 20 centimetres (8 in) from the top. In fact the stem ends there; the top part is the bract, that continues with only a slight colour-band marking it from the stem. The lower leaves are reduced to a brown sheath at the bottom of the stem.
Soft rush can become invasive because of its unpalatability to livestock. Suggested methods of controlling rushes are
- Ploughing
- Drainage
- High applications of inorganic fertiliser, coupled with taking silage crops. However application of farm yard manure is ineffective
- Topping, i.e. to prevent seed formation and distribution into the soil, followed by autumn or winter flooding for a week or two
Burning is ineffective because the plant remains green through the winter.
Cyperus rotundus (coco-grass, Java grass, nut grass, purple nut sedge or purple nutsedge, red nut sedge, Khmer kravanh chruk) is a species of sedge (Cyperaceae) native to Africa, southern and central Europe (north to France and Austria), and southern Asia.
Cyperus rotundus is a perennial plant, that may reach a height of up to 140 cm (55 inches). The names "nut grass" and "nut sedge" – shared with the related species Cyperus esculentus – are derived from its tubers, that somewhat resemble nuts, although botanically they have nothing to do with nuts.
As in other Cyperaceae, the leaves sprout in ranks of three from the base of the plant, around 5–20 cm long. The flower stems have a triangular cross-section. The flower is bisexual and has three stamina and a three-stigma carpel, with the flower head having 3-8 unequal rays. The fruit is a three-angled achene.
The root system of a young plant initially forms white, fleshy rhizomes, up to 25 mm in dimension, in chains. Some rhizomes grow upward in the soil, then form a bulb-like structure from which new shoots and roots grow, and from the new roots, new rhizomes grow. Other rhizomes grow horizontally or downward, and form dark reddish-brown tubers or chains of tubers.
It prefers dry conditions, but will tolerate moist soils, it often grows in wastelands and in crop fields.
C. rotundus was part of a set of starchy tuberous sedges that may have been eaten by Pliocene hominins. It was a staple of Aboriginal populations in Central Australia.
Biomarkers and microscopic evidence of C. rotundus are present in human dental calculus found at the Al Khiday archaeological complex in central Sudan dating from before 6700 BCE to the Meroitic pre-Islamic Kingdom of 300-400 CE. It is suggested that C. rotundus consumption may have contributed to the relatively low frequency of dental caries among the Meroitic population of Al Khiday due to its ability to inhibit Streptococcus mutans.
C. rotundus was employed in ancient Egypt, Mycenean Greece, and elsewhere as an aromatic and to purify water. It was used by ancient Greek physicians Theophrastus, Pliny the Elder, and Dioscorides as both medicine and perfume.
Phacelia tanacetifolia is a versatile plant that is
used extensively in Europe, both as a cover crop
and as bee forage. It is also being increasingly
used in California – especially in vineyards.
Phacelia is quick to grow and flower and grows
well in dry soil.
It does a good job of limiting
nitrate leaching when planted in early fall. It
winterkills at about 18°F. In cooler regions, it can
be used as a between cash crops cover crop in the
summer. Phacelia is listed as one of the top 20
honey-producing flowers for honeybees and is also
highly attractive to bumblebees and syrphid
(hover) flies. Phacelia's habit of flowering
abundantly and for a long period can increase
beneficial insect numbers and diversity, because it provides high quality nectar and pollen. It's
also useful as a cut flower with its unusual and attractive blooms, strong stems, and long vaselife.
Because phacelia germinates well at cool temperatures and grows quickly, cut flowers can
be available by mid-spring.
Value to Insects
Phacelia is highly attractive to honeybees, bumblebees, and syrphid flies, and these insects are
valuable pollinators. Syrphid fly larvae are voracious feeders on aphids and young caterpillars.
Phacelia is also reputed to attract other beneficial insects, such as parasitic wasps and minute
pirate bugs. It provides both pollen (for protein – needed for egg production) and nectar (for
carbohydrates – needed for energy).
Insectary plants are those with high volume, quality nectar and/or pollen that are extremely
attractive to beneficial insects. They are planted for the primary purpose of attracting pollinators,
and predators and parasites of pest insects. Phacelia's habit of quick growth and long flowering
make it highly suitable as an insectary plant. It can be succession sown so that it is in flower all
season or it can be sown at a specific time to build up beneficial insect populations in
anticipation of their need to control a crop pest.
One caution – if you have a large area of phacelia planted, time the planting so that phacelia
flowers are not blooming when you need a crop pollinated. Phacelia flowers are so attractive to
pollinators that the flowers would compete successfully for pollinator services against most other
flowering plants.
Use as a Fall/Winter Cover Crop and/or Mulch
Phacelia may be suitable as a winter-killed cover crop when a heavy crop residue is not needed
in the spring. Research in other regions shows phacelia has the potential to produce abundant
biomass and does a good job at catching excess nitrates before they leach into groundwater.
Phacelia winter-kills at about 18ºF, and the residue breaks down quickly. Its use as a fall/winter
cover crop may be appropriate when it will be followed by a vigorous cash crop (e.g. potatoes) in
early spring.
Phacelia has proven its usefulness as a food source for pollinators and other beneficial insects. It
has also proven its value as a cover crop in other regions of the world. It is largely untested in
the mid-Atlantic. While clearly not the cover crop for every situation, it may be a good choice in
some situations – especially when there is a desire to attract beneficial insects. We need more
information about this potentially useful plant and on how it performs in this part of the world.
We also need information about phacelia's usefulness as forage. Several publications mentioned
forage as a use, and phacelia has a nitrogen content of 4%, but little else is known about its
suitability as animal feed.
Lupinus perennis (also wild perennial lupine, wild lupine, sundial lupine, blue lupine, Indian beet, or old maid's bonnets) is a medicinal plant in the Fabaceae family. It is widespread in the eastern part of the USA (from Texas and Florida to Maine) and Minnesota, Canada (southern Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador), and on the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, where it grows on sand hills and roadsides.
Sundial lupine only produces leaves in the first year of growth. The leaves are palmately compound, with 7–11 leaflets arranged radially or in a rosette. Their stalks are numerous, erect, striated, slightly pubescent. The leaflets are obovate, with a blunted apex or pointed spear, naked from above, sparsely pubescent from below.
Petioles are longer than leaflets; stipules are very small, almost missing.
The inflorescence is long, sparsely flowered, sometimes almost verticilate. Flowers can range from blue to pink, but are most often blue or bluish purple. The calyx is silky, without bractlets; its upper labium with a protuberant basis, is integral or weakly emarginate, the lower one is integral, almost twice longer than upper. Floral bracts are styliform, shorter than the calyx, early falling. The corolla is purple or white, three times longer than the calyx. The vexillum is shorter than the wings. The carina is weakly ciliate. Pods are yellow-grayish-brown, with straight lines, necklace-shaped, short and closely hirsute, easy shattered, with 5–6 seeds. Seed is oval with a light hilum.
Lupinus perennis is used as foodplants by the caterpillars of several lepidoptera. Among these are the frosted elfin (Callophrys irus) and the rare and endangered Karner blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), whose caterpillars feed only on the lupine leaves. Leaves that have been fed on by Karner blues have distinctive transparent areas where the larvae have selectively eaten only the green, fleshy parts.
The lupine has been declining in number and range since the Industrial Revolution. It is estimated that it has declined in number by about 90% since 1900. This decline has been deemed one of the primary causes of the Karner blues' endangerment. The main causes of its decline are thought to be habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and poor management.
Currently it is threatened in Iowa, Maryland, and New Hampshire; it is endangered in Vermont and is extirpated in Maine. Human development has eliminated a large portion of its viable habitat. Remaining habitat is often fragmented, which is problematic for the lupine because it limits the range over which it can reproduce. Viable lupine habitat is often difficult to maintain because it flourishes after fires and other forms of disturbance.
One reason this occurs is that lupine seed coats are so tough that only pressure changes due to rapid heating or abrasion are strong enough to allow water to penetrate and start germination. Moreover, fires, feeding by large ungulates, and mowing can improve habitat quality for established lupines by changing soil quality, vegetative structure, leaf litter depth. The exact mechanism for this is currently being investigated. Overall, the primary issue is that not enough habitat is burned or otherwise disturbed frequently enough to support the plant.
Parkinsonia aculeata is a species of perennial flowering tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include palo verde, Mexican palo verde, Parkinsonia, Jerusalem thorn, jelly bean tree and ratama in Spanish.
Parkinsonia aculeata may be a spiny shrub or a small tree. It grows 2 to 8 m (6.6 to 26.2 ft) high, with a maximum height of 10 metres (33 ft). Palo verde may have single or multiple stems and many branches with pendulous leaves. The leaves and stems are hairless.
The leaves are alternate and pennate (15 to 20 cm long). The flattened petiole is edged by two rows of 25–30 tiny oval leaflets; the leaflets are soon deciduous in dry weather (and during the winter in some areas) leaving the green petioles and branches to photosynthesize.
The branches grow double or triple sharp spines 7–12 mm (0.28–0.47 in) long at the axils of the leaves. The flowers are yellow- orange and fragrant, 20 mm (0.79 in) in diameter, growing from a long slender stalk in groups of eight to ten. They have five sepals and five petals, four of them clearer and rhomboid ovate, the fifth elongated, with a warmer yellow and purple spots at the base.
The flowering period is the middle months of spring(March& April or September & October). The flowers are pollinated by bees. The fruit is a seedpod, leathery in appearance, light brown when mature.
P. aculeata is a major invasive species in Australia, parts of tropical Africa, Hawaii, and other Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
It was introduced to Australia as an ornamental tree and for shade around 1900. It is now a serious weed widespread through Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, covering about 8,000 km2 (3,100 sq mi) of land, and has the potential to spread through most of the semi-arid to subhumid tropical area in Australia.
It forms dense thickets, preventing access for humans, native animals and livestock to waterways. The fruits (seedpods) float, and the plant spreads by dropping pods into water, or pods are washed downstream by seasonal flooding. Without the scarifying received by tumbling in streambeds, the seeds are slow to germinate.
Several control methods are used to reduce the existing population and the spread of P. aculeata in Australia. Three insects have been introduced to Australia for biological control; the parkinsonia bean weevils, Penthobruchus germaini and Mimosestes ulkei, both have larvae that specifically eat the seeds from parkinsonia pods and are proving to be a useful management tool, and the parkinsonia leaf bug, Rhinacloa callicrates, which destroys photosynthetic tissues but has had little overall impact on the plant. Fire is effective for young trees; mechanical removal and herbicides are also used.
Parkinsonia aculeata has a high tolerance to drought, simply attaining shorter stature. In moist and humus-rich environments it becomes a taller, spreading shade tree. This plant prefers a full sun exposure, but can grow on a wide range of dry soils (sand dunes, clay, alkaline and chalky soils,etc.), at an altitude of 0–1,500 metres (0–4,921 ft) above sea level.
Cercis siliquastrum, commonly known as the Judas tree or Judas-tree, is a small deciduous tree from Southern Europe and Western Asia which is noted for its prolific display of deep pink flowers in spring.
This species forms a small tree up to 12 metres in height and 10 metres in width.
The deep pink flowers are produced on year-old or older growth, including the trunk in late spring (cauliflory). Also, the flowers display a blossom with five free petals and fused sepals. This shape is specific to the Fabaceae. The leaves appear shortly after the first flowers emerge.
The flowers are pollinated by bees, attracted by nectar. Pollen from the protuding stamens is deposited on the bee's body and carried to another flower's stigma.
In Israel the tree has a status of a protected plant.
These are cordate with a blunt apex, which occasionally has a shallow notch at the tip. The tree produces long flat pods that hang vertically. The flowers are edible and purportedly have a sweet-acid taste. It can fix Nitrogen
and is noted for attracting wildlife.
Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils, prefers well-drained soil and can grow in nutritionally poor soil.
Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils and can grow in very alkaline soils.
It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It prefers dry or moist soil and can tolerate drought.
Acanthus mollis, commonly known as bear's breeches, sea dock, bearsfoot or oyster plant, is a herbaceous perennial plant with an underground rhizome in the genus Acanthus. It is regarded as an invasive species in some jurisdictions.
This plant is native to the Mediterranean region from Portugal and northwest Africa east to Croatia and it is one of the earliest cultivated species.
Etymology:
The name of the genus derives from the Greek term ἄκανθος, akanthos, the name of the plant in Greek; it was imitated in Corinthian capitals; the word is related to ἄκανθα, akantha meaning "thorn" referring to the thorn-bearing sepals, or any thorny or prickly plant in Greek, while the Latin name of the species, mollis meaning "soft", "smooth", refers to the texture of the leaves.
Description
Acanthus mollis reaches on average 30–80 centimetres (12–31 in) of height, with a maximum of 180 centimetres (71 in), inflorescence included. It has basal clusters of deeply lobed and cut, shiny dark green leaves, soft to the touch, up to 40 centimetres (16 in) long and 25 centimetres (9.8 in) broad, with a long petiole.
The inflorescence is a cylindrical spike 30–40 centimetres (12–16 in) long and can produce up to 120 flowers. The flowers are tubular, whitish, and lilac or rose in colour. Each flower is up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) long and it is surrounded by three green or purplish bracts. The central bract is spiny and larger than the other two. The calyx has two lips: the upper is purple on top, rather long and forms a kind of "helmet" on top of the corolla. The corolla is reduced to a white lower lip, trilobed, with purple-pink venation. The four stamens are fused to the corolla and look like tiny brushes. This species flowers in late spring or early summer, from May through August.
Acanthus mollis is entomophilous and it is pollinated only by bees or bumble bees large enough to force their way between the upper sepal and the lower, so that they can reach the nectar at the bottom of the tube. The fruit is an ovoid capsule containing two to four large black seeds. The dispersal of seeds is by the wind (anemochory).
These plants are usually propagated from tubers and tend to form large, localized clumps which can survive for several decades and look statuesque when well-grown, but its suitability as a garden plant is lessened on account of its invasive nature (new plants are produced readily both from seed and portions of root) and its susceptibility to powdery mildew and attacks from snails.
Trachelospermum jasminoides is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae, native to eastern and southeastern Asia (Japan, Korea, southern China and Vietnam). Common names include confederate jasmine, star jasmine, confederate jessamine, and Chinese star jessamine.
Trachelospermum jasminoides is an evergreen woody liana growing to 10 feet (3.0 m) high. The leaves are opposite, oval to lanceolate, 2–10 cm long and 1-4.5 cm broad, with an entire margin and an acuminate apex.
The fragrant flowers are white, 1–2 cm diameter, with a tube-like corolla opening out into five petal-like lobes. The fruit is a slender follicle 10–25 cm long and 3–10 mm broad, containing numerous seeds.
A valuable perfume oil is extracted from the steam distilled or tinctured flowers and used in high end perfumery. In a dilute form, tinctured flowers are much used in Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai incenses. A bast fibre is produced from the stems.
Trachelospermum jasminoides is commonly grown as an ornamental plant and houseplant. In gardens, public landscapes, and parks it is used as a climbing vine, a groundcover, and a fragrant potted plant on terraces and patios. It will flower in full sun, partial shade, or total shade, and requires well-drained soil (if constantly kept damp it may succumb to fungal infection), moderate water, moderate fertilizer, and a climbing structure (whether a trellis or another plant is secondary). Propagation is most commonly done with cuttings/ clones.
It is widely planted in California and also particularly in the Southeastern United States, where its hardiness, confined to USDA Zones 8-10, the area of the former Confederate States of America, gives it the name Confederate jasmine. It gets another of its common names, trader's compass, from an old Uzbekistan saying that it pointed traders in the right direction, provided they were of good character. It is also called star jasmine in Europe and Chinese jasmine or Chinese ivy in Asia.
Soft rush or common rush (Juncus effusus) is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant species in the family Juncaceae. It is nearly cosmopolitan, considered native in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America, and naturalized in Australia, Madagascar, and various oceanic islands. It is found growing in wet areas, such as the purple moor-grass and rush pastures and fen-meadow plant associations in the United Kingdom.
