| I am a vine that likes dry conditions. Also called old-man’s beard, I have stems that grow along the ground or up into trees. My seeds form cotton-like masses of hairy fruits. I have no petals, but the sepals of my flower are creamy or purplish-brown in color and therefore look like petals. My leaves are opposite each other on a long slender vine and have three lobes, each with teeth or lobes of their own. As a perennial, I can be found in the same place year after year. I am a member of the buttercup family. |
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| A tall herb, I grow up to four feet tall with a stiff, erect, hairy stem. My large delicate yellow flowers open in the evening with four petals and eight large stamens. My leaves are long and lance-shaped with occasional teeth. Hawk moths, bats and bees pollinate me early in the morning. By the middle of the day my bloom has closed, wilted and turned an orange-red color. When my seed capsules mature, they pop open at the slightest touch to propel the seeds away from me. I grow best in moderately dry to moist soil in disturbed areas and open fields. |
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| All of my parts are poisonous, even to the touch. A chemical called atropine and alkaloids, which depress the nervous system, are contained in my system. My large beautiful white, trumpet-shaped flowers open at night to attract sphinx or hawk moths, bats, beetles and bees. During the day I am visited by hummingbirds attracted to my heavily scented flowers. By midday my flower fades to a cream color tinged with lavender, closes and becomes limp. I am a large mounded, spreading dark green plant that grows up to six feet across. My leaves are a dusky green-gray, triangular in shape and strongly veined. When developed my seeds are in a spine-covered one- to two-inch ball called a capsule that smells musty. My roots are large top-shaped tubers. I grow in deep, well-drained loose soil in eroded arroyos and disturbed areas. |
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| You might think I have big, showy flowers, but really those are hundreds of tiny flowers compressed into one flower-like head called a composite. Showy yellow to orange ray flowers surround the brown disk flowers that produce my seeds. My seeds are eaten by birds, squirrels, and even people. I am also used in making soap, paint and cosmetics. My heavy, stiff, hairy and rough stalk can grow up to 10 feet (3 m) tall. My leaves are alternate and simple, rough and hairy, oval to heart shaped with toothed edges. Sometimes I have one very large flower head filled with nutritious seeds. Other times I produce many branches covered with flowers. Ladybugs, black ants, aphids and bees find food in my flowers and in turn are stalked by spiders and praying mantis. I provide erosion control by growing in places where soil is disturbed and grass is not competing for nutrients. |
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| My genus name means “two shields” in Greek. My fruit pod resembles a pair of round shields placed side by side. Others think this fruit looks like pair of old-fashioned eyeglasses. I am an erect annual herb with the characteristic four petals, four sepals and four anthers of the mustard family. I like open, sandy soil of disturbed areas. I grow 10–12 inches (25–30 cm) tall. As I grow I keep producing flowers at the top of my stem. Descending the stem one can observe various stages of ripening seeds; the first blooming flowers are the mature seeds at the bottom of the stem. |
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