A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 ferny weed? under a tree

This is my neighbor's tree. She can't get rid of the plant that is growing under the tree.. and decided, it looks cute enough anyways, so may as well not try to keep fighting a losing battle. But, what is it? Here's a few different angles, including one "flower" on it.









Meg

also, what is the tree.. she's not sure. (I think it looks like maple.. even had those "helicopters" on it, but smaller than I usually see.)

Meg

Looks like a QUEEN ANNE'S LACE..

It's a carrot relative...
and does re~seed prolifically...
But attracks many beneficial bugs...

I leave a bunch thru out my property...
*but I really like them in flower arrangements..*

Yep, looks like a maple to
my eyeballs!!!!

I had qal in my yard last year.. but never saw it get that big & bushy! Holy moly!! It takes up the entire bottom of that tree..lol.

I thought it was maple, but had to have someone else confirm it for me. Yea, I'm a bit of a dim bulb when it comes to id'ing even the simplest things. :rolleyes:

Meg

Yep, I'm sure it's a maple - though what kind I'm fuzzy about.

And if the flowers on that plant open out until they are flat, it's Queen Anne's Lace.

One caveat: For anyone with pollen allergies, Queen Anne's Lace is a witch.

Since it is the 'ancestor' of the carrot, removing it means getting all the root out, and those can go down quite a few inches - much longer than our modern carrot.

I'd guess Suger Maple. It may be a Silver but it seems to have more of a bronze hue.

I would go with Red Maple. That has been the main maple distributed by nurseries for homes over the past 10 years.

Also, due to the narrower leaf with 3 lobes. red

Norway Maple has 5 lobes. norway

Sugar Maple has 3-5 lobes and is wider than Red Maple. Sugar

Silver Maple has severely dissect leaves. silver

Amur Maple has leaves like Red but a compound trunk & smaller growth habit. amur

Boxelder has compound leaves. boxelder

Those are the main maples grown as lawn trees.

I was going to say that it looks like a young sugar maple because of how low the trunk splits into branches. We have a VERY old sugar maple in the neighbor's yard. It takes three people hand in hand to reach around the trunk! Its gorgeous! Anyways, it splits into branches low like that.

I think it was the plant under the tree you were wondering about. There's a lot of it at the beach and the park right now. The flowers look like something from the yarrows or QA's.

I like the stuff - I don't think the Blue Hat Society would approve of it being cultivated in the gardens, but it looks good.

We have a few sprigs of it in the grass. I might pull them and see what I can do.

I'm pretty sure it was QAL. I think I saw a few of the flowers open up on it, before they must have taken the weedwacker to it..lol. I guess they didn't like it getting as big as it did. This stuff was growing up almost as tall as the tree's trunk, to it's lower branches. Which, really isn't as tall as it sounds.. I mean, my head is above the lowest branches.

Meg

Does poison sumac get that bushy? I have both here, and they're easily confused (at least by me). I can tell the difference now that they've flowered, but before that it was hard to tell, since they both have ferny leaves

Do you mean poison hemlock? It does look similar to QAL.

Poison sumacs look completely different. Most folks can identify poison ivy & oak. But, it is the poison sumac shrub 'rhus vernix' that usually gets people into trouble.

Short story...

I live for 3 1/2 years in the old caretakers cabin (that had been built onto over the years) on a mountain in Morgantown,WV. The caretaker oversaw the reservoir (basically an earthen levee filled with water) that supplied Morgantown. In the subsequent years, the reservoir became a wetland & peat bog. Not many people ventured out that way, so we, our dogs & our freinds had it to ourselves. A great place to hike & for the dogs to swim in the surrounding streams.

One of my buddies brought his dogs over to find no one at home, so he strolled the 1/2 mile through the woods back to the reservoir. He walked halfway around to a small wall overlooking a fast moving stream & took a seat to enjoy the atmosphere. He was not into plants & ID like me. Later he told me, "I thought to myself, what is this lovely little shrub?" So, he broke off a small branch & put it up to his nose to smell.

Later that night, I got a call from his wife. It seams that he was in the hospital with his eyes & nostrils swelled shut. He looked terrible. He assumed that his dogs must have gotten into poison ivy & given it to him. After hearing his story, I asked him if it was the shrub that was growing up the side of the wall vine-like & then bushing out at the top. He affirmed that it was that shrub. I subsequently pointed out that it was poison sumac.

After he healed, we hiked all of his favorite spots & I pointed out anything he might want to avoid in the future.

Yeah, sorry I meant poison hemlock, not sumac.

Horrible story about your friend. Speaking of which, I just weed wacked a little bit down today after thinking about pulling it, but it was along the fence line and probably was gonna be a PITA to pull, so I wacked. I should have held my breath but didn't even think about it Sheesh. It's amazing what this stuff can do to a person.

Oh, it wasn't the vapors that got him. When he held it to his nose it touched. And the oils on his hands got to his eyes by rubbing them later.

Did not mean to mislead.

Ohhhhh good. *whew* That's good to know. I get so crazy around poison (insert any here)...because I dont know how I'll react (fear of the unknown). I've never been stung by a bee, wasp, fire ant, or had poison anything. And I think the mosquitoes grow different in the country - I've never itched so much from them like I do here LOL Color me crazy, I dunno.

Just being aware can conquer.

test

Jeff always gets a reaction to that stuff - I seem to be ok with it.

But lately my hands are itchy and my exczema is starting to creep back. I'm using Bura-Sol for a soak (it works well).

I think mine came from the grass weeds I've been handling.