Greensleeves

Henbit has produced a riot of purple color this year along Davenport's East River Drive.

If you travel along Davenport’s East River Drive, you may have noticed the south-facing hillside of Lindsay Park, all covered with beautiful purple flowers.

What are they?

I stopped yesterday for a closer look, and at first blush, the plants looked a bit like creeping Char-lie. But other characteristics definitely indicated something different.

I took a few stalks to Duane Gissel, Iowa State University/Scott County Extension horticulturist, and he instantly identified them as henbit — a weed if you will.

So no, this is not something the park department planted. This is a plant that spreads through seeds.

Google “henbit” and you’ll find a wealth of information and all kinds of pictures.

Henbit is described as a winter annual with square stems and pink-purple flowers, reaching 16 inches in height. It is primarily a weed of turfgrass, landscapes and small grains and is found throughout the United States but most common in the eastern states.

Its leaves are opposite (definitely different than creeping Charlie), reaching 5 inches in length, circular to heart-shaped, with hairs on the upper leaf surfaces and along the veins of the lower surface. Leaf margins have rounded teeth.

But why all of a sudden?

I’ve been commuting past Lindsay Park for more than 20 years, and I’ve never noticed this be-fore.

Gissel says the sudden profusion may be because conditions were just right for seed germination and survival last fall, and so now this spring – voila – flowers!

If you’ve got this plant in your yard and want to get rid of it, there’s an ISU article that gives ad-vice. You’ll find it at this site.

 On the other hand, you could just enjoy the flowers.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 6:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.