Hi This is my first post and as my question is regarding outdoor plants and there is no outdoor plant forum, I thought this would be ther best place to post it. I live in a bedsit in the leafy suburbs of West Greater London and until a month or so ago I have had a strictly chop and burn relationship with the plants and trees in my front and back gardens.(Mostly with a machetee, jack saw, chainsaw and gas powered weed burner)...Hey, the place needed some real heavy pruning, and all those weeds were making it look untidy! However all this tidying of the garden has had a dramatic unforseen effect...New species that were absent before, started springing up all over the place! The first one I noticed was Rosebay Willow-Herb or Fireweed which sprang up after I burnt off the remainents of the other plants in the bed. Anyway, I have always been interested in trying to finding as many edible plants as possible from the common everyday wild plants growing in my garden and it suddenly dawned on me that apart from the Fireweed, various Roses, Privet hedge, Silver Birch tree, Grass, Blackberries and nettles, I did'nt really have any idea what most of them were, e.g. what they were called, and without a positive ID I could'nt look up the edible or medicinal uses they may have. After going through several good reference books on plants and flowers umpteen times I have so far succeeded in ID'ing the following plants and trees: Autumn Hawkbit, Small-leaved Lime tree, Lilac tree, Ribwort Plantain, Greater Plantain and Cotoneaster. ...As far as I can tell, apart from the Autumn Hawkbit they all have edible and or medicinal uses. But there are still loads of plants that I have been unable to identify. The one I need to know the most at the moment is a real strange one, and I've never seen its like before. It has very distinctive shaped leaves...Very small and ovoid when young but as they grow they change into this shape: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33303222.html Then finally into this shape when mature: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33303225.html And the vast majority of leaves on the plant are this arrow head shape. The top is hard to describe so here is a close up of the top of a younger plant of the same type: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33303224.html The young plants are green but older plant/s take on a reddish colour. The thin branches are opposite each other on the stem and here is a photo of a young plant showing this in detail: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33303223.html So can anyone help me to identify it? Thanks Alf.
Re: Cant be either of those... ...The rear edge of the Atriplex Hastata (Halberd-Leaved Orache) leaf is either at right angles to the stem or the outer rear tips are angled towards the front, away from the stem, the rear edge is either straight or slightly curved and the tips resemble shark fins fitted to the large end of a delta shaped leaf but with a narrower taper than my leaf...More like my medium aged leaf: But the rear tips of my unidentified mature leaf are nowhere near as pronounced as in Hastata and each outer rear tip is angled backwards slightly from where it meets the stem and it has two rearward projections approimately 1/3 in from each tip....As per this Photo: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33303225.html By the way, the largest leaves on my unidentified plant are only about 70mm long (The majority are only 30-40mm long) from the tip to where the stem meets the base of the leaf but Orache Hortensis leaves are typically 130-180 mm long. Here is a pic of the largest leaf I could find on the plant: http://sigmasd10.fotopic.net/p33324568.html ...So I can say without any dought that my plant cannot be Hastata or Hortensis but thanks for your suggestions anyway...I was'nt expecting such rapid replies! At first I thought it might be Good King-Henry (Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus) but I quickly dimissed it after reading up more about it. Another possible is Strawberry blight/Blite Goosefoot (Chenopodium Capitatum) going entirely by leaf shape except that may also have to be ruled out as it produces vivid red flowers that are much larger than the tiny inconspicuous flowers on my unidentified plant. However, I am now convinced it must be a related species to Orache and Goosefoot...But which one? Thanks Alf
