Sitting here waiting for the butter to soften, for the eggs to come to room temp. A hazy vision of a perfect lemon bliss cake in this afternoon’s future. Nothing between me and a gloriously sweet tart confection except some time deliberately spent. Nothing at all.
Except…the seven other windows open on the laptop, the 15 open windows on the phone (including three not-quite-abandoned shopping carts that ping me on occasion to let me know that they have been saved — I was so worried!), the getting-colder-by-the-minute cup of coffee that’s at my right hand and really needs me to get upstairs and top up whilst the pot is still hot, the two actual wood-and-glass windows right I front of my face that open into a back garden. Except except except, so many little things surrounding me that just seemed to show up at some point in the last two decades that this room has been accumulating flotsam.
And the back garden that I occasionally step into and, well, garden. The back garden is where I could be right now. My little reward for completing this particular bit of writing, in addition to the occasional tiny hike up a flight to fetch hot caffeine. It’s a few hours after a small but nonetheless gratefully received bit of rain, the temperature cooler than yesterday, still clouds overhead. The air is generously damp in a way that the skin knows and silently appreciates.
Lost in the weeds
I’m staring out into the backyard, noting the changes that have come on this spring. There are more of some things, fewer of others. The beebalm (Monarda didyma) is as yet unbothered by the wandering herds of flat-toothed giant rats, you know, the white-tailed eating machines that outnumber us Chathamites 2-to-1 on most days. The golden ragwort (Packera aurea) is especially happy right now, the leaves luxurious as all the hard work of flowering has been accomplished.
Golden ragwort (Packera aurea)
There are beautyberry bushes (Callicarpa americana) breaking out all over the place, the wax myrtles (Morella cerifera) slowly recovering from that late cold spell a few weeks back. I strain up in my chair to get a peek of the wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum) I moved last fall to make sure they were still visible and not being digested a mile down the lane (see earlier rat comment).
Wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)
Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
Uninvited guests
This is all well and good, as they say, until I adjust my focus, take a finer-grained peek at all that green out there. That’s when I see them. Lots of them. They’ve been there for a while, now, several years, in fact. This year, there are more. Many more. It’s distressing. I did not invite them to my little garden party. They just showed up one year. Quietly slipped in through a side door. Hundreds of tiny interlopers drifting in through a gap on a light wind. Settling in, meeting the guests, making themselves quite at home. Except it’s not their home — and now there are so many. They invited friends.
Would ya look at all that? Hundreds of tiny interlopers!
The weed of the season: Youngia japonica. Commonly known as false hawksbeard, or Asiatic hawksbeard, though I’m not really fond of either of those monikers. The first implies…well, falseness, like the plant is somehow less real than others. Yes, we gardeners are judgy, it’s a boon and a bonus, but I do believe in a level playing field. Perhaps that’s a topic for a later missive. The second name also carries an unwelcome whiff. Even though place names have been in use for ages with regard to plants, there nonetheless seeps in a xenophobic stain that can be difficult to wash out. Perhaps that word is not entirely accurate in this context, as xenophobia is generally used when describing the fear we might feel when in the company of strangers. Other people. At least, that’s what the dictionaries are telling me. And again, a digression best left for another time. For now, let’s skate through with a nod to the very real unintended slight sent in the direction of others when their place of origin is included in a description. Asiatic as it is from Asia. That’s all, no judgment appended to that fact. No need to whap that rug any more, let’s bring it back in. For the remainder of our time, I’ll call this one Youngia, the name we use on the job. One word, precise and stain-free.
Youngia japonica in flower
Youngia japonica leaves
This little daisy is a member of a very large group of flowering plants, the Asteraceae (so many vowels), the asters. They all have composite flowers made up of many small flowers grouped together in a head. There are disc flowers and ray flowers, the former clustered in the middle, the latter arranged about the edge (these are often called petals, but they are actually all individual flowers with a single petal…close enough!). Asters are cool — and they are everywhere. The genus Youngia was first described in 1831, named for two famous (at least at the time) Brits: poet Edward Young (1683-1765) and scientist Thomas Young (1773-1829). The plant originated in Asia, specifically Japan and Korea, into western China and the Malay Peninsula. It was recorded in North America in 1929 (Maryland) and locally in 1958 (North Carolina). One suspects it was around for much longer, given its habit of producing a mess of very small light seeds that have a tuft attached at one end. We all know how dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) scatter their potential progeny into the air at the slightest wind. Same mechanism is at work here. Many plants have evolved structures that aid in this type of dispersal.
Youngia japonica in fruit
Having super lightweight fruits that travel along windy corridors confers an amazing advantage to an otherwise immobile lifeform. Next time you are taking a stroll in a natural area, look at the path edge as you walk. I warrant that (for now anyway) the further you go into the woods, the fewer nonnative weeds you will encounter. Paths and roads are easy beds for these waifs to find purchase. Fortunately, no breeze is eternal and every fruit must fall. Back on my little ranch, there were no Youngia plants 18 years ago. Then I started seeing them about 10 years ago. Now they are in every cultivated and noncultivated part of my plot where there is sufficient light. They come up fast and they pop out cute little buttery yellow daisy heads in quantity. The species most commonly found here is an annual and does all its business during the cool spring. Essentially, we do not see Youngia in summer. Oftimes, though, it will pop back onto the scene in fall when conditions are right. This proliferation has elevated this species from a curious waif a couple generations back to a fully fledged invasive exotic. And yes, that sucks. So what do we do about it?
How to responsibly remove false hawksbeard (Youngia japonica)
How to remove Youngia japonica: Pull it up, roots and all if you can.
How to remove Youngia japonica: Bag it to prevent further spread.
How to remove Youngia japonica: Throw it in the trash.
There’s your visual aid. Pull it up, roots and all if you can. Bag it and throw it in the trash. Why all the extra fuss? Why can’t I just compost it, or leave it in my garden to rot? Excellent questions! This plant is a survivor. And while I have not witnessed this phenomenon first-hand, enough colleagues have shared this note of caution with me that I now include it in my own pass-along teaching. To wit: when you pull this plant, it does not up and die right away. In fact, it will go into an overdrive mode and quick-as-it-can push out maturing fruits to get that next generation out into the world. A death throe worthy of a sci-fi thriller.
Youngia japonica is one of the few things that ends up in the landfill instead of the yard waste bin, compost pile or mulcher. When we have to remove poison ivy from garden beds where it does not belong, we bag and toss that to prevent it from unwanted spread as the compost pile becomes organic mulch that comes back into the garden. Same thing here. We do not want to inadvertently add this plant to garden spaces in the future. See it, pull it, bag it, toss it.
A while back, when folks who look like me were beginning their own invasion, many plants were brought onto the North American continent. Notable among these was dandelion.
The cosmopolitan dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Much has been written and said about this little omnipresent daisy. It traveled with us as we traversed west across native lands, contributing in its very small way to the permanent change in the landscape. It was introduced and it naturalized. Many consider it a weed and an entire industry has come about bent on the control/eradication of it and its ilk. That (topic for another day) aside, it remains to be seen if this cousin will reach the “cosmopolitan” status that the dandelion now enjoys.
[Here, Margot interjects with a little word study, as is her wont: cosmopolitan species live almost anywhere around the globe with the right conditions. Like our tiny friends the Youngia, orcas are also cosmopolitan, existing as they do in every ocean on earth. Conversely, endemic species like our beloved and bitey venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) exist only in very specific localities.]
Perhaps some enterprising chemist will distill a genius tonic from the pale, fuzzy arugula-shaped leaves that will move this inelegant pest into the cool kids club. We are relearning that every bit of the daffodil is medicine; why not hawksbeard? That would be awesome.
Now it’s time to bake. That cake is not going to magically make itself. And it’s strawberry season…then we’ll go outside and pull some weeds, promise.
Weeds?
References:
Babcock, E. B., & Stebbins, G. L. (1937). The genus Youngia. Carnegie Institution of Washington.
McCormick, C. A. (2022, April 5). By their specific epithets ye shall know them… most of the time – North Carolina Botanical Garden. ncbg.unc.edu/2022/04/05/youngia-and-other-invasives/
Photos by Geoffrey Neal. See more of his work at soapyair.com.
Geoffrey Neal is the director of the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference. See more of his photography at soapyair.com, @soapyair and @gffry. Margot Lester is a certified interpretive naturalist and professional writer and editor. Read more of her work at The Word Factory.
About the name: A refugium (ri-fyü-jē-em) is a safe space, a place to shelter, and – more formally – an area in which a population of organisms can survive through a period of unfavorable conditions or crisis. We intend this column to inspire you to seek inspiration and refuge in nature, particularly at the Arboretum!
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