Hi, I’m wondering about a plant I have seen growing around my whole life here. I always assumed it was cockleburr, because the seeds come in a spiral-shaped velcro-like burr that always gets stuck in dog and cat fur. But, looking at photos of cockleburr online, it doesn’t really look the same.
If you peel the burrs apart (they peel off in a spiral strip), it always has exactly two hard, shiny, tiny black seeds.
The flower it makes is really beautiful – it’s a very tiny creamy orange flower that looks like a rosebud. When they open, they have a brilliant purple center. The leaves are heart-shaped and kind of serrated or stickery when mature; but overall it’s not a stickery plant. They’re really quite pretty. When still green, the seeds don’t have burrs yet, and look a little like nasturtium seeds.
Ring any bells? Thanks.
Lotus nevadensis? The rosebud shape seems right but I’m not seeing the purple center or the heart-shaped leaves. Anyway, that’s a pretty good wildflower site so you might poke around there to see if you spot it.
Where in California are you? Urban / rural / north / south / central?
I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in
San Bruno (shhh!)
and I live in Oakland. I’ve seen them both places. They are close to the ground and tend to spread out. They are not the least bit shrubby; the stems are not woody. The flowers are very small (a few mm long); I would think most people don’t even notice them. They frequently manifest in lawns.
Kimstu, that’s a good guess, but that’s not it. Thanks.
Got some pictures of one, but it turns out my flipcam doesn’t do closeups. Bummer. The really blurry one of the flowers is mostly to show how the calyx reaches up around the flower, like rosebuds do.
Here, here, here,
and here.
I’m stumped. My best guess is probably wrong: scarlet pimpernel?
Dr. Drake, you absolutely rock! I thought it wasn’t right because of the color, but I googled the species name, and nearly every other picture I saw looks exactly like it!
Thank you so much. I have wondered what this is since I was a little girl. No one around me noticed it at all, or if they did, it was, “just a weed.”
Funny, because the burrs you describe sound like they come from burr clover (aka “burr medic”). See the bottom-middle photo.
Scarlet pimpernel and burr clover often grow near each other.
There is a website, gardenweb that has a section that will help you identify plants. They are good and the responses are quick. I recently used it and got many sympathetic answers describing my weed, now known as The Bane Of My Existence, formerly known as Japanese Knotweed.
