PL SC 352 Lab 5

Fleshy Fruits

Soft fruit wall (pericarp) at maturity

Berry

Fleshy fruit formed from single pistil with many seeds in pulp.

Drupe

Fleshy fruit with a stony interior (pit) surrounding a single seed

Dry Fruits

Have hard fruit wall at maturity

Capsule

A dry dehiscent fruit developed from several carpels (siliques: capsules from 2 carpels)

Nutlet

Small, dry, indehiscent nut like fruits

Sympetalous/connate

With the petals united/fused, at least near the base

Regular/Actinomorphic

Radially symmetric

Irregular/Zygomorphic

Bilaterally symmetric

Scape

Leafless flowering stalk arising from ground level

Family: Boraginaceae

Borage

Corolla: 5-lobed connate (fused petals)

Leaves: Alternate, entire

Stems: Hairy (rough often)

Fruit: four 1-seed nutlets inside the calyx

Flower: Often true blue

Habitat: Dry, open sites

Bluebur

Lappula squarrosa

Lifecycle: Annual, winter annual

Growth habit: Erect, branched upper stems

Seedling: Cotyledons oval with short petioles, covered in short hairs

• 1st true leaves emerge 1 at a time and appear to be folded in half/creased

Leaves: densely hairy, linear, with a distinct crease. Small leaves on upper raceme

Flowers: Tiny, 5-lobed white-blue connate petals, flowers in racemes, bracts below each flower

Seeds: Four bur-like seeds (nutlets) with 2 rows of sharp, hooked prickles (velcro like) for seed dispersal

Distribution: Introduced from Europe, Roadsides, waste areas

Viper’s Bugloss

Echium vulgare

Lifecycle: biennial-perennial.

Habit: erect, very hairy stems & sepals, dark purple/black dots at base of stem hairs.

Leaves: starts with a basal rosette, mature leaves long, linear to oblong-lanceolate and only ascend ½ way up the plant, mostly smooth margins.

Seeds: 4 nutlets

Flowers: 5-lobed blue to purplish-blue, 5 sepals, 5 stamens (often magenta), corolla broader on top. Buds can be magenta-purple.

Scorpioid racemes (curved, segmented appearance).

Houndstongue

Cynoglossum officinale

Lifecycle: usually biennial

Growth Habit: erect with branching racemes

Leaves: basal rosette of large, ovate-lanceolate leaves with pointed tips, upper leaves lanceolate.

Stems and leaves covered with hairs

Fruits/Seeds: grounds of 4 nutlets, oblong to triangular, Velcro-like hooks.

Flowers: small, 5 deep red petals, sometimes whitish or purplish, densely hairy sepals.

Distribution: Calgary, SW AB, increasingly Edmonton.

Legal Status: noxious – Weed Control Act

Water Forget-Me-Not

Myosotis scorpioides

Lifecycle: perennial.

Growth Habit: branching, erect.

Leaves: alternate, oblong with rounded or acute tips

Stems and leaves having rough hairs

Fruits/Seeds: nutlets

Flowers: racemes of small flowers, 5 blue petals with a yellow ring in the center, buds often start pink, transitioning to blue as they open.

Ecology: Prefers fully saturated soil or partly submerged in shallow water

Distribution: US, Eastern Canada, BC; Alberta: Wabamun Lake

Legal Status: not regulated, but federal regulation prohibits release of non-indigenous species into waterbodies with fish

Family: Solanaceae

Nightshade (Potato)

lternate leaves

Usually perfect, regular flowers

Corolla varies from funnel-, to bell- to wheel-shaped

Fruit is a berry or a capsule

Hairy Nightshade

Solanum physalifolium

Lifecycle: annual

Seedling: Cotyledons stalked and narrowly oval with pointed tips

• True leaves ovate with wavy margins

• Growth habit: Stems erect, branched, and spreading

Entire plant covered in dense short hair; may be sticky to touch.

Leaves: ovate-triangular, toothed-entire margins

Flowers: white, star shaped in axillary clusters

Fruits: Forms a small berry that is initally green and tomato-like, yellow-brown at maturity cupped by sepals

• Fruits can be highly poisonous (solanine, an alkaloid)

Bittersweet Nightshade

Solanum dulcamara

Life Cycle: perennia, rhizome

Leaves: ovate-triangular main lobe and two small oval basal lobes

Habit: vining (can be purple or brown and woody)

Flowers: 5, reflexing and purple; connate yellow anthers

Fruits: small oval tomato-like fruits, initially green but yellow-orange-red through maturity. Larger than hairy nightshade fruits

Much less hairy than hairy nightshade

Jimsonweed

Datura stramonium

Lifecycle: annual

Habit: erect, branching, can grow quite tall, thick burgundy-purple stems

Leaves: very large, irregular margins

Flowers: 5-lobed trumpet-shaped corolla, white-purple

Fruits: large, thorny capsules, splits open when dry.

Emerging problem in Central Alberta.

All parts are toxic.

Black Henbane

Hyoscyamus niger

Lifecycle: annual or biennial

Habit: erect, sticky hairs

Leaves: ovate-lanceolate, irregular margins.

Flowers: 5-lobed, pale yellow corolla with dark purple centers and purple reticulations.

Seeds: conspicuous branches of erect, urceolate capsules

Toxic & hallucinogenic.

Foul smell (AKA Stinking Nightshade).

Family: Plantaginaceae

Plantain

Leaves basal or opposite

Flowers borne in long narrow spikes, four or five petals united

Perfect, irregular shaped flowers; 2-lipped (zygomorphic)

Fruit is a capsule or nutlet

Toadflax

Linaria vulgaris

Lifecycle: Creeping perennial

Seedling: Cotyledons are round with a prominent projection/bump/point at the apex.

• 1st true leaves are oval, later leaves are linear and narrow at both ends, alternate arrangement

Growth habit: Erect stems, much branched.

Spreads by creeping rhizome

Flowers: racemes with light yellow lips, deeper yellow to orange middle. Upper lip and lower lip that has a “spur” pointing downwards

Fruit: is a capsule releasing dark brown-black flattened winged seeds for dispersal via wind

• No milky juice, but does contain toxic compounds that livestock avoid

Distribution: Introduced as an ornamental from Europe. Noxious, a problem in reduced tillage

Common Plantain

Plantago major

Lifecycle: Simple perennial

Seedling: Oval cotyledons with 3-5 longitudinal ribs

• True leaves ovate with long, thick, petioles, 5-7 prominent parallel veins and entire margins

Leaves: All leaves are basal throughout lifecycle

Root: Short, thick root, fibrous, no above ground stem

Flowers: Inconspicuous flowers in narrow cylindrical spikes on leafless scape

Fruit: egg-shaped capsule that splits to release many variously angled seeds

Distribution: Common across Canada in lawns and waste places

Woolly Mullein

Verbascum thapsus

Family: Scrophulariaceae

Life Cycle: biennial

Leaves: basal rosette, extremely fuzzy and soft, ovate-lanceolate

Habit: erect and non-branching, can grow very tall

Flowers: erect spike, 5 fuzzy yellow petals and fuzzy bracts

Probably the fuzziest weed you’ll find

Family: Rubiaceae

Madder/Bedstraw

Opposite or whorled leaves

Stipules found in leaf axils

Perfect, regular flowers

Fruit is a capsule, berry or drupe

Cleavers

Galium aparine

Lifecycle: Annual, winter annual

Seedling: Cotyledons petioled and oblong with a notched tip (midrib typically visible)

• 1st true leaves in whorl of 4

Growth habit: Weak stems (props up on other plants), covered in stiff, backward-pointing hairs that adhere to plants, animals

Leaves: whorls of 6-8, narrow, linear

Flowers: 4 tiny green-white, dichasium/cyme inflorescence

Fruit: appear as 2 joined together, "cleave” at maturity (unlike bluebur)

Gray-brown, round seeds with hooks, velcro-like.

Populations with herbicide resistance to Gr. 2 and Gr 4

Himalayan Balsam

Impatiens glandulifera

Family: Balsaminaceae

Life cycle: annual

Leaves: mostly lanceolate

Flowers: pink-magenta, zygomorphic, hooded/helmet-like.

Fruits: exploding pods.

Hairless

Curly Leaf Pondweed

Potamogeton crispus

Family: Potamogetonaceae

Lifecycle: perennial

Growth Habit: submerged aquatic

Leaves: alternate, linear, rounded tips, distinctly wavy, like crinkle cut fries

Stems: somewhat

Flowers: small, dense, slightly emergent spike, reddish-brown

Fruits/Seeds: no viable seeds, produces reproductive buds-like structures called turions.

Ecology & Impacts: Water bodies - Bow River, South Saskatchewan River and associated reservoirs.

Legal Status: prohibited - Fisheries (Alberta) Act

Flattened Rush

Juncus compressus

Family: Juncaceae

Lifecycle: perennial

Growth Habit: grass-like appearance

Leaves: narrow, grass-like

Stems: smooth, unbranching

Flowers: 6 small, brown to brown-green tepals

Fruits/Seeds: brown capsules in groups

Ecology: salty and alkaline soils, sensitive and threatened bog/fen species

Family: Asteraceae

Aster

A large and diverse family

Most represented family amongst the weeds that we’ll cover

Flower head (involucrate capitulum) consists of many florets, borne on a receptacle, and surrounded by rows in involucral bracts

Fruit is an achene with a long pappus

Two types of florets: Tubular (disk) or ligulate (ray) florets

Three types of heads:

• Discoid head

• Ligulate head

• Radiate head

Discoid Head

disc florets only

Ligulate head

ligulate florets only

Radiate head

both disc and ligulate florets

Biennial wormwood

Artemisia biennis

Lifecycle: Annual or biennial

Growth habit: reddish; tall/linear/erect

Leaves: alternate, deeply & narrowly dissected lobes/feathery margins, serrate & waxy

Flowers: yellowish-green globe like, densely packed clusters in the leaf axils

Lesser Burdock

Arctium minus

Lifecycle: Biennial

Leaves: Alternate; decrease in size up the stem; huge ovate-triangular, often wavy margins, very hairy undersides.

Stem: Erect, coarse, thick and may be angular

Growth Habit: huge, can grow up to 3 m in height

Flowers: Purple-magenta disc flowers along leaf axils; surrounded by many hooked involucral bracts (ball-like buds).

Narrow-leaved Hawk’s Beard

Crepis tectorum

Life cycle: Annual, winter annual

Cotyledons: oval with short stalks

• 1st leaves elongated with thick petioles, backward pointing teeth on margins

• Basal rosette, leaves narrow/linear-lanceolate, variable margins, the upper leaves are sessile and clasping

Erect, branched stems produce milky latex

Bright yellow heads of ray flowers, several involucres

Dark achenes with 10 prominent ribs and a pappus (1 seed/floret) - prolific seed producer

Introduced. Peace region-Central AB. Spreading South

Problem in reduced tillage

Prickly Lettuce

Lactuca serriola

Life cycle: Annual, winter annual, biennial

Seedlings with oval, short- petioled cotyledons; first leaves toothed with soft prickles; lower leaves deeply backward-lobed, upper leaves less lobed or smooth and clasping.

Erect, smooth, hollow stems, milky sap

Undersurface of all leaves have a (yellowish) row of prickles on the midrib

Small heads in branched clusters; 5-12 pale yellow ray flowers

Achenes narrowly oval, ribbed with a long beak and white pappus

Disturbed and waste areas