In praise of weeds, if it's not too late....

After apologizing to the weeds yesterday, I decided to dedicate this first day of May to them. It was easy, at 7:00 a.m., when the early morning sun caused most flowers to literally glow. When I walked to the service station to buy a morning paper, I was startled to see a small crop of wild mustard and wild radish growing in an uncared-for patch of dirt, but looking so elegant one could imagine they were planted. Their cross-shaped flowers were identified in their original family name, Cruciferae. Now the trend is to have every family name derive from what is called a type-genus rather than be merely descriptive. So, now the mustard family is named for its most common genus, Brassica, and is Brassicaceae. Brassica includes many edible relatives of mustard such as broccoli and cauliflower. Radishes are in the same family as is watercress. For some reason I haven't figured out, the blogger softward insists on rotating the radish 90 degrees, so, until I figure it out, you'll have to turn your head sideways to appreciate its elegance.
Next down the list, in the "what's in a name" category, is the English plantain. Not to be confused with its namesake, the unsweet banana. This plantain is in the plantain family, Plataginaceae, and has a long history of medicinal and other uses. Look up Plantago for some interesting reading. The unsweet banana plantain is in the same family, in fact the same genus, as the banana. The next flower down the list is sorrel, whose leaves look like clover, but it is not a legume like the clover, in fact the flowers look nothing like clover. Last, lest we forget it is a flowering plant, is a wild grass. The bottom three weeds were all growing in an unmowed field just south of the animal shelter in Quincy. If you want to see some beautiful weeds, better hurry. These fields will inevitably be mowed soon. Just down the street I saw an activity that always stirs my ire. Round-up was being applied to a beautiful patch of dandelions in the vicinity of an attempt at organic gardening and a place where children play. When we will ever learn? Besides their beauty, dandelions are far more nutritious than most of the greens you can buy at Safeway. Just be sure to pick your in an area that's not sprayed. Good luck!