Shepard Lane Garden

  The woolly croton (Croton Capitatus) usually begins to have its odd 'fuzzy blooms'  here in Tennessee right around the time we go back to school.  For that reason, we've done the 'what's that weed!?' before on this one.     However, I did not learn at that time it had so many other names!  It is also called Hogwort (and not the same Hogwart as Harry Potter's school, apparently that was a misremembering of Hogweed!) - and Goatweed (although it is poisonous to goats) and Doveweed, as its seeds can provide an important food source for doves and quail.    Grasshoppers like to eat the plants, too Goatweed or Croton has been a problem for many farmers because it harbors 'pests', like grasshoppers and root that also like to eat cotton, and because it causes illness in goats and cows that consume it with their feed.  However, in non-agricultural forest areas and meadows it is an important part of the life   The croton grows in this silv...

So, what is this weed? I've been told it is the reason this place is called 'pea ridge.'  It is definitely in the pea family Fabaceae , which basically just means it is a legume, like peas and beans.  But it isn't your classic sweet-pea flower, or several of the other things Google suggested to me it might be. Balsam imaptiens?  Nope, that isn't a vine.  This is definitely a vine.  There are some of these plants called 'touch me not', which have seed pods that explode upon a touch.  This is not quite that animal, although the flowers are similar, the leaves are not.  And sweet pea flowers have much different leaves than this, as well.  IF you look at the leaves and they are markedly different - keep looking, you'll run into a better match soon! It winds itself around things like bindweed (in the convolvulus family, as we spoke of the other day) , but it isn't a 'classic' bindweed.  I had a hit on this being in Fabaceae, from the shape of th...