Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-25.
Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you well. I went back to the blackberry briar wilderness along the south hayfield on Saturday (the 17th) to check on the progress of the Pale Indian Plantain (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium) but their flowers still hadn’t opened. I took about 200 photos of 18 species, most of the plants I already photographed before. Even though I have already identified most species, I either need better photos, more photos, or I just have an itchy trigger finger. Once the mosquitos start coming, I’ll shoot just about anything. 🙂 But, amazingly, they weren’t so bad on Saturday. Walking through all the blackberry briars is bad enough and the taller they get the harder they are to walk through. I feel like hooking up the mower to the tractor and making a path, but I keep finding plants I need photos of. What if I run over something I don’t know is there? GEEZ! I could just take a machete but then I would be fighting the thorny stems I just cut… I will probably wait until after the first “F” and then mow down the whole mess from one end to the other. If I don’t, I won’t even be able to get in and walk around next year.
One example is what I just found on Saturday… (Yeah, I know it is Friday already). I was walking through the thorns and saw a plant I hadn’t seen before, flowers, fruit, and seed… I thoroughly photographed the plant from one end to the other so I could get a positive ID and upload the photos on iNaturalist and write a new page.
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-30.
I was like, “OH, what is this?” Flowering stems growing in all directions and fruit!
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-31.
Well, it was just downright neat and growing right in the blackberry jungle… I thought finding this plant made it worth fighting all the thorns.
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-32.
It isn’t often you find flowers, fruit, and seed at the same time all on the same stem…
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-33.
The flowers are fairly small…
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-28.
The leaves are kind of thick and leathery…
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC.) on 7-17-21, #813-29.
Stems are kind of hairy… I took a lot of photos and weeded out some. I just added a few on this post and saved the rest for the plant’s page which isn’t finished yet…
As it turned out, it was a species I found north of the chicken house in 2020 that had not flowered. You know, one of those that grow a rosette of leaves the first year and flower the next… I couldn’t properly identify it for sure until it flowered… When in flower, it looks absolutely nothing like the rosette from the previous year. Hackelia virginiana, also known as Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, Virginia Stickseed, ETC. Yeah, another sticktight with barbed bristles. 🙂 Another plant with “virginiana” as the species name…
Hackelia virginiana (Beggar’s Lice, Stickseed, ETC) on 7-19-21, #815-2.
On Monday, I was in the trees (and vines) north of the chicken house photographing leaves of the wild grapes (long story) and there the darn plants were, flowering up a storm. There were three… SO, the main species I photographed in the briar patch jungle on Saturday were flowering much closer. They weren’t flowering north of the chicken house the last time I was there, otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken 30 photos (more or less) of them on Saturday.
Honestly, finding out the species I found in the briar patch on Saturday didn’t seem as exciting after I found out what it was. Especially since they are right in the backyard… 🙂 Now, I am laughing about the whole ordeal. 🙂
Well, I do really need to go back to the briar patch jungle to check on the Pale Indian Plantain flowers. It has been a week! I am tempted to walk up the trail next to the farm, walk through the trees, and climb over the fence to get there instead of walking through the tall grass. It is quite a distance and I feel like I have walked up 500 steps by the time I get there. Then I have to fight the briars and walk back. I keep thinking the hay will be cut, but it still hasn’t happened… There is no real threat of rain in the forecast, but temps are definitely on the rise… The forecast says 95° F by next Wednesday!
Well, that’s it for this post. I did find a couple of interesting caterpillars on the walk on the 17th. I got one shot of one of them and it completely jumped off of the leaf. Nothing like it on iNaturalist and I can see why…
OK, I better close this post. Until next time, be safe, stay positive, and be thankful. Get dirty if you can, but maybe wait until later in the afternoon…
The Belmont Rooster 
I removed two big plants of Beggar’s Lice from the back yard yesterday. They can grow elsewhere. I also picked a pint of blackberries from the plant at the edge of the yard. It is conveniently located so I don’t have to hike to get to it.
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Hello Jim! Glad to hear you have blackberries. I eat a few from plants that grow along the fence row and at the edge of where I mow. Different species ripen at different times, so there is an extended harvest. Most of them ripening now are good-sized berries, but the earlier ones were quite small. All those I have to walk through do not have berries… Any sticktight type of plant around my yard and garden gets yanked up. There are plenty everywhere else… I hope you and yours are well. Take care and thanks for the comment!
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What is with ‘virginiana’?! It is as if the early botanists who came from Europe all got off the boat in Virginia, and named what they found there after the first state in which it was discovered. Many plants with that name have huge native ranges, but an inordinate number of them seem to have been identified in Virginia. Many plants have the name ‘californica’, but that is because they live nowhere else.
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Hello Tony! I went through my wilflower list and I have identified several species named after a few states, Canada, and only one after America… A few are named after people, but most are a latin word for a characteristic of the plant. I am grateful for Linnaeus reclassification of plants or we would have to remember 4-6 names per species. Either way, there are only a few scientific names I can readily pronounce when I am out in the wild… I can spell it always, though. Take care and thanks for the comment!
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