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Post by mickey on Jan 20, 2011 14:14:32 GMT -5
The guy next door told me the weeds in my garden are Purslane. But on looking on the web I think they are spurge. one is good to eat the other is good to purge your gut ;D So what is the best way to tell them apart baring eating them? I had a large crop of them last year were my sweet corn failed, out of four rows only five corn plants came up. I found out later the corn seeds where eight years old.
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Post by garnetmoth on Jan 20, 2011 14:52:35 GMT -5
Good question! I have been nibbling on our purslane since i found out it was good for you (our kept bunnies like it too!)
Purslane is kinda succulent like hens and chicks, and in bright light has a kinda sparkly surface. it also has yellow tiny flowers and small capsules of black seeds that are a bit smaller than snapdragon seeds.
Spurge is flat leafed, like clovers I guess. Some spurge with larger leaves have little V markings on them like clovers. Just a bit pubescent maybe. I think the flowers are whitish but are small. seeds are brownish.
Does that help? Google pictures too!
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Post by castanea on Jan 20, 2011 14:52:52 GMT -5
It can sometimes be hard to tell and even harder to explain. Common spurge looks nothing like purslane but other types of spurge do. I only eat wild purslane when I'm 100% sure it's not some type of spurge. The internet is a great source of misinformation. You can find both of them misidentifed and even find sites that say they are the same thing.
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 20, 2011 15:42:45 GMT -5
The stems of purslane are red (from what I've seen of the common type) and succulent as has been mentioned before. Creeping spurge is not succulent and has thinner stems that exude a milky sap when you break them. These two plants look sort of similar and often grow in the same spots in my old yard. After weeding the two out of some garden beds in my early years, I seem to remember that you have to grab spurge just under the center of the rosette as it holds on more tenaciously than purslane. Also, purslane seed pods are cute little cups with lids that come off when they are ripe to spill their black seed. I have no memory of the spurge as I have never tried to save seed from it. This guy had a similar experience: hotdogjam.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/purslane-or-spurge/Once you know them, they are very different. |
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Post by castanea on Jan 20, 2011 16:10:12 GMT -5
I had forgotten about the milky sap. That is a good identifer. Some purslane though has little or no reddish tint.
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Post by mickey on Jan 20, 2011 18:23:53 GMT -5
Maybe it was mixed because some of it grew close to the ground and some of it grew about a foot tall. So does all spurge have milky sap like milkweed? I ask because the one time I weeded the garden I had two packed bushel baskets of then. And by fall I had a garden full of them again. If most of it is Purslane then it shouldn't go to waste I would think.
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Post by castanea on Jan 20, 2011 23:45:36 GMT -5
There is common spurge that has no sap to speak of, but it really doesn't look like purslane. The spurge that looks like purslane has sap.
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