Most likely either a sow thisle or a wild lettuce of some kind. Both look superficially a lot like dandelions in both leaf and flower. Sow thistle flowers can be about the same size as a dandelion flower. Wild lettuce flowers are similar, but much smaller. Years ago, back in the 1980's, there was a photo taken and distributed in the media about "giant mutant dandelions" growing near Three Mile Island in PA. It was a picture of sow thistles. The media idiots didn't bother to run it past a botany professor first, which would have taken all of 2 minutes.

I'm glad to read all these reports; they're interesting! Thanks to everyone who's written in. Rosemeadowgardener: I don't recognize any of the weeds you list; are they Australian natives, or exotic: do you know their botanical names? Thank God we don't have one of the worst curses of North America here: no poison ivy, oak, sumac. How interesting to read Marianne's weed list from the other end of the European temperate zone and discover that I have all the nasty weeds she does, and several of the nice ones. Galium aperine is an unpleasant plant, sticky and climbing, but there are a number of other Galium species that grow locally that are rather nice. Sweet woodruff is Galium odoratum. Our native primrose is Primula vulgaris; and we too have anemones, hepaticas, wild geraniums--harebells I think not. Connie speaks of the huge weed population of her property, which is an old farm. We too garden on a former farm and downhill from a current one, and I agree with what her post suggests, that agricultural properties present particular weed problems. Ongoing plowing leaves ground permanently disturbed, given weeds fertile ground to grow; grazing animals can trample ground, and the hay brought in to feed them can bring weed seeds from other areas. The year after the shade garden was flooded with manure from a cattle enclosure above, the weed population there was amazing. And we get great numbers of weeds, some of them highly obnoxious, along the drainage ditches that descend from our neighbors' plowed fields through our own land. Then, if fields and pastures are abandoned, they begin to go to brush, and you get brambles and other colonizing species--Connie's plant list is different from mine, but the process is the same. What the heck is Creeping Charlie? A couple of you have mentioned it. The various posts have covered quite a bit of territory, not only in the literal sense, on the topic of weeds. Paula took up the issue of invasive exotics that push out native species on undomesticated land (as well as the native but obnoxious Poison Oak). This is a problem all over the world, of course. I read in that interesting book 'Ecological Imperialism' about how many plants flourished in Europe along with the development of agriculture and became weeds, then traveled all over the world with European colonizers and established themselves in temperate zones everywhere, often at considerable cost to native species. We too have our exotic invasive species--one standout here in the hills is black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, originally from North America--but I wonder what the effect has been on our native flora of a few thousand years of tolerably intensive agriculture. Were there species that went extinct because they were useless to humans and occupied land that could be used for farming and other useful activities? Some plant populations exist in part as a result of human activities: we have a rich population of native orchids many of which grow in pasture land and are now threatened because grazing is disappearing and the land is turning to brushland and then to woods. But perhaps three thousand years ago the orchids that grew were those adapted to woodlands? Lavender lass: do you know the species name of your artemisia? We have one ugly native artemisia, A. vulgaris, but a couple of nice ones. Another pleasant weed I remembered is lemon balm, Melissa officinalis--what a fine plant to share a name with. It's too invasive to plant, but grows wild at the edges of beds, is fragrant, and has fresh green leaves that are pretty in spring. I feel better every time I see it. I like mulleins too. We have a woolly species similar to what erasmus describes which makes a fine ornamental; the problem is that it seems to need a somewhat lighter soil than is present in most of our garden; otherwise it's not fussy. Melissa

I am already battling virginia creeper, english ivy and northern sea oats! and probably will be fighting trumpet vine soon, and asiatic dayflower, and chameleon plant--all of which I innocently accepted and planted (except the virginia creeper, it just appeared; the ivy was already here). So I'll pass on the chicory--thanks for the warning. My yard is very wet in late winter & spring--my garden area has been built up a bit because of that--but can be quite dry as summer goes on. Does that sound like the conditions Joe-pye weed will like? It looks like a lovely tall plant for the back of the garden. Cydonia33--I looked up the blue mist flower, and I have that! --it was also a volunteer. Another "volunteer" that I have a lot of is a garlicky smelling allium-like plant. I wonder if the seeds of these natives were hiding beneath the top layer and were brought up to germinate when I turned the soil of the "lawn" to make the garden. I dug down 8-14 inches and added materiel to loosen the clay. I ran into a fair amount of trash (broken pottery and glass, a bottle, and such) that deep so I am kind of surprised to get so many flowers. One other thing that came up was a very tall, thick stemmed plant--I let it grow because I thought it might be a sunflower, but when it developed flowers they were more like small ugly dandelions, so I chopped it down and uprooted it. I still don't know what it was--it grew six feet tall!

There are some sources that are now telling us that dandelions are really beneficial for your lawn because the do root deeply and bring up nutrients that grasses need but cannot reach because they are too deep in the soil, beyond where the grasses roots are. Contrary to what those that sell the poisons tell you eliminating dandelions, or other "weeds", is not going to happen and we are polluting our world trying to eliminate them. Meadows, upon which our lawns are based, are not the monocultures we have made out lawns that are now susceptible to insect pests and plant diseases that are kept under control in those meadows. Expend much less time, energy, and money and just keep you dandelions cut, especially the flowers, and don't get overly paranoid about them.