Thanks for joining me on my continuing hunt to find out what grows wild in my yard and whether it's edible or useful (or a pest that causes of allergies, has prickers, etc.). Today I want to look at two plants that
Ty at the Texas Garden Web Forums helped me Identify. I was hoping they'd have some useful properties (other than looking kinda pretty) but can't find anything about them being edible or medicinal, and their seeds have been described as "
annoying balls of velcro" that get stuck in pet hair (joy.) These is not a native...but European plants that found its way here and took over.
PLANT #1: Torilis nodosa
(Knotted Hedge Parsley)
First, the one I THOUGHT might be carrots....
You see, year before last I left some seed packets out accidentally and they blew across my yard. The next spring I had two carrots grow in a corner I hadn't planted them. Then after
a fire in my backyard hundreds of what seemed to be the same carrot plant sprouted up where the fire had burned. Here's a picture of some:
What I Thought Were Carrots
I was all excited. But alas, I think I got excited too soon.
Because here's what my full grown carrots look like (and several more of these did pop up, which is cool):
Actual Carrot Leaves
But this is what the hundreds of little plants grew into...
As you can tell, it looks very different than the carrot. While it started with the same sort of lacy rosette of leaves the carrot has, the stem soon split apart into branches and the leaves stayed the same size. It has flowers that grow on the stem near the leaf nodes, not up at the top like Yarrow or Queen-Anne's-Lace. The root smells sort of carrot-like. I can tell you already it's invasive. Man, I wish these had been carrots!
Plant #2: Probably Torilis arvensis
(Spreading hedge parsley)
It's root's also smell carroty, and it has similar leaves, but the flower grows at the top, more like like Yarrow or Queen-Anne's-Lace. Actually, it VERY much like Queen-Anne's-Lace except the top flowers are smaller and lack the leaves right under the base of the flower shown in
this illustration.
Plant #2
Plant #2 (Blooms)
I am pretty sure this is
Torilis arvensis (Spreading Hedge Parsley). It's root's also smell carroty, and it has similar leaves, but the
flower grows at the top, more like like Yarrow or Queen-Anne's-Lace.
Actually, it's VERY much like Queen-Anne's-Lace except the top flowers are
smaller and lack the leaves right under the base of the flower shown in
this Queen-Anne's-Lace illustration. As it's name suggests, it's invasive too (but it's at least prettier than the other one).
Oh well. Time to get the weed whacker out again!
, which not only shows when to fertilize, aerate your soil, tackle weeds, etc.. But, if you just want info on what veggies and herbs to plant each month, you can also get that information online at one of the resources listed 
I'd reccomend anything by 
