Nature Bulletin No. 308-A   May 25, 1968
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Richard B. Ogilvie, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:SOME BARNYARD WEEDS

A number of remarkable weeds are commonly found in barnyards and 
farmlots. All of them were brought here from the Old World and most 
of them are called by different names in different localities. They grow 
along fences, in odd corners, and even in ground closely grazed and 
hard-packed by the trampling feet of livestock. Some of them are also 
common along paths worn by human feet, and some invade our 
carefully tended lawns. They are the tough bad boys of the vegetable 
kingdom, with a supervitality and stubbornness that you have to admire 
even though you cuss them.

Almost every beaten path in this country has a margin of Wire Grass 
and it soon takes over any abandoned path. Many a barefoot youngster 
finds its sticky little seeds spattered around his ankles on a rainy day. 
The extremely tough and wiry stems are usually about 6 inches high, 
topped by loosely-branched heads. Few animals attempt to eat it and 
only a very sharp lawnmower can cut it. It is not a grass at all, but is one 
of the rushes, and is better named Path Rush.

Another survivor on dry hard-packed ground is Knotgrass, or 
Knotweed, which forms a tough spreading bluish-green mat in spite of 
traffic over it by people, poultry or livestock. Each plant rises from a 
deep-boring taproot and send s out a creeping tangle of branches -- 
sometimes a yard long -- covered with small oval leaves. This, too, is 
not a grass but is a relative of buckwheat and the smartweeds. Like 
them, it has "knots" on the stem where each leaf is attached. This spicy-
flavored weed is relished by horses, cattle and chickens, and its seeds 
are eaten by small birds but it manages to survive. Like yarrow, another 
common weed, it is often called "Nose-bleed Weed" because the juice 
of its foliage will stop nosebleed. It is a drug plant used for 
hemorrhages and other medicinal purposes.

There are several other weeds that can take a lot of punishment on the 
compacted soils of paths and barnyards, including three which, like the 
dandelion, are pests in your front lawn: Common Plantain, Peppergrass 
and Shepherd's Purse. They are tough stringy plants with deep taproots. 
The latter two, being small members of the mustard family, have a 
peppery flavor but the young leaves of all three can be used in salads or 
as greens, and their seeds are eaten by birds. Hungry goslings gorge 
themselves on leaves of the plantain.

They say a hog will eat almost anything but there are a few rank hardy 
weeds which taste so bad that even hogs leave them alone. One is the 
Burdock which may grow as tall as a man and with leaves so long and 
broad that a half dozen shotes can snooze in the shade of a single plant. 
It's scores or hundreds of pink-and-white flowers are followed by burs 
covered with hooked spines which, when ripe, cling to and mat the tails 
and coats of cattle, horses and dogs. The long heavy root is packed with 
food and is imported from Europe as a drug to cure eczema or for other 
medicines. The core of the young shoots can be cooked or candied and 
eaten.

Dog Fennel or Wild Chamomile and the tall coarse Jimson or 
Jamestown Weed which grows luxuriantly in hog lots, are two plants 
which smell and taste so bad that neither hogs nor chickens will eat 
them. The odor of the Jimson is sickening. Both contain vegetable 
poisons used as drugs. Jimson seeds being one of the best sources of 
atropine -- used for dilating the pupil of the eye.

A bruised leaf, rubbed on your skin, may give you a rash and, certainly, 
B. O.