Georgia, Skye and I walked to the beach today, and along the way we spotted this
in the roadside:
Mile-a-Minute:
Persicaria perfoliata is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family.
Common names include mile-a-minute, devil's tail, giant climbing
tearthumb, and Asiatic tearthumb. It is a trailing herbaceous annual
vine with barbed stems and triangular leaves. It is native to most of
temperate and tropical eastern Asia, occurring from eastern Russia and Japan
in the north, and the range extending to the
Philippines and
India in the south. P.
perfoliata is an
aggressive, highly invasive weed.
Persicaria perfoliata has a reddish stem that is armed with downward pointing
hooks or barbs which are also present on the underside of the leaf blades. The
light green leaves are shaped like an equilateral (equal-sided) triangle and
alternate along the narrow, delicate stems. Distinctive circular, cup-shaped
leafy structures, called
ocreass, surround the stem
at intervals. Flower buds, and later flowers and fruits, emerge from within
the ocreas. Flowers are small, white and generally inconspicuous. The edible
fruits are attractive, metallic blue and segmented, each segment containing a
single glossy, black or reddish-black seed.
Persicaria perfoliata is an edible species. Its tender leaves and shoots can be eaten raw or cooked as a salad green or vegetable and its fruit is sweet and can be eaten fresh.
This
Yellow Garden Spider, aka
Orb Weaver, was out of it's element on the beach.
A rougher day than
this one.
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