Three hundred sixty-six days ago, I posted photos and a request on Facebook and via the Arroyo S.E.C.O Network of Time Banks Google group for help identifying a weed that had shown up for the first time on the property, in the Louisiana Iris bed (where it gets lots and lots of water). Mike Dillon suggested I post the photos and a description at iNaturalist website. I did. Nary a hint offered there x 1 year + 1 day. Anyhoo, just now, after spending about an hour and a half scouring websites to no avail, it occurred to me to conduct a Google search on ONLY the most noteworthy feature of the plant—the globe of wickedly barbed seeds—rather than including the descriptions of flower and leaf. *BAM!* First hit was it: Bidens pilosa. Native to the Americas. Lots of medicinal properties. Beloved of butterflies and honeybees. Right there in the iris bed! And its edible, with this caveat from eattheweeds: B. pilosa ... may have a role in throat cancer in areas where opals are also found. This is because B. pilosa will uptake a form of silica — the same that creates opals — and that can have a topical cancerous effect. No opals are mined in these here parts, far as I know. So, if my skin begins to take on a nacreous glow in the upcoming weeks, we can credit Spanish needles (aka pitchfork weed and beggar ticks).
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:51:13 +0000
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