What is this?

[reed]

I got another weird plant. It's growing in with my seed lettuce and I thought that is what it is. Now that it's blooming it don't look like any lettuce I'm familiar with. Hope it's not poisonous as I'm sure we ate it mixed in with the other earlier in the season. Well, I guess it's not, we're still here.  

[farmermike]

Looks like Cichorium endivia. Escarole or frisée, or endive?

I only have C. intybus flowering in my garden now, but they're bee magnets!

[mjc]

Yep, it's one of those mentioned above...at this point it's probably too bitter to eat, but since it's this far along to producing seed, go ahead and let it finish,

[reed]

Thanks, I knew folks here would know what it is. I'v never grown it before and most of my lettuce was my own seed but there was an old pack of lettuce mix from the store included. It must have been in it.

[kazedwards]

Thought I would ask what a couple more plants are.

[khoomeizhi]

The first one looks like Joe our weed. The second is velvetleaf.

[khoomeizhi]

Joe pye weed, dammit auto-correct.

[reed]

We call that first one iron weed, I love it. It can get big, 7 -8 feet if you tend it a little. I've wondered about the second one myself. I don't like it. If it goes to seed you will never see the end of it.

[philagardener]

Second one is Velvetleaf, Abutilon theophrasti. It is a member of the mallow family and a very problematic invasive.  Pull, pull, pull.

[philagardener]

Ironweed, Veronia vasciculata, is a prarie native - treasure it! 

[reed]

I have a little spot just outside the mowed yard where I pamper iron weed and goldenrod by pulling and mulching with the competing grass and weeds. They both get much taller than otherwise and there is a cedar thicket just the other side. The yellow and purple against the green background is beautiful.

[kazedwards]

Thanks everyone. The velvetleaf is all ready pulled. Reminded me of a nightshade that grows here. It has only grown where the ground is disturbed. Seems that always a bad sign

[reed]

Small patches of this grain looking plant are common along the roads in my neighborhood. I have some in my yard too. It came up among a clump of irises a few years ago.  Mine has bigger seed heads and is taller than most of the wild patches but only cause of I have tended it a little, just by thinning the irises and keeping weeds pulled. Occasionally though you see a really big patch, four or five feet tall, mine isn't that big. It is also apparently perennial as it always comes back in the same places. I think, all the patches I see are the same plant but not even entirely sure about that. it grows mostly in the edges under trees and along old fence rows. Apparently it doesn't like or can't compete with other things in more open areas. 

It looks an awful lot like the wheat I have right now but when I search out pictures of grains they all look a lot alike to me, having never seen many grains in cultivation myself I lack good reference. Anybody know for sure what it is?? Would it be worthwhile to collect seeds and propagate it? Actually I think most grasses transplant pretty easily and being apparently perennial I could just go collect some up and plant a big patch. 

[farmermike]

reed, my first guess, if it is perennial, would be some kind of wild-rye; like Elymus virginicus or canadensis.

In CA, our native Elymus species were supposedly used as an edible grain by the native people. I have been growing some in my garden for a while, and this year I think I may try to thresh out some of the seeds and see how practical they would be to cultivate as food. (Probably not very.)

[reed]

Thanks farmermike, I looked those up and Elymus canadensis sure looks like it. Too bad it doesn't sound like it has much food value. I was in hopes it was something that had escaped cultivation from back in the days when people farmed for a living.