Maggie Herskovits

by

Introducing Weeds of Boise

Weeds are the wild flora of our cities. Their occurrence and continued existence is not directly reliant on humans in the same way that the plants in our yards, parks, gardens, and other green spaces are. They may take advantage of the disturbance that we cause when we stir up the soil or cease maintenance in a particular spot, and they certainly appreciate the runoff from our sprinklers and the free rides their seeds get on our pets and ourselves, but they don’t need us looking after them to survive. They get by on their own whether we approve of them or not. Most may not be native to the area, but their presence is natural – undirected and involuntary – and for this reason I consider them to be a valid component of our urban flora.

If you visit a natural area outside of our cities, you are likely to find a field guide associated with that region that will help you identify many of the plants found there. However, such a field guide is not likely to exist for the plants found in a vacant lot or an urban roadside near you. Sure, there are plenty of general weed identification guides, some of which may be specific to where you live, but they are often focused on agricultural/horticultural weeds or weeds found in natural areas outside of the built environment. Few show weeds in an unmaintained urban setting the way that Peter Del Tredici’s book or Maggie Herskovits’ zine do. Clearly we need more resources that identify and document our urban floras.

Weeds of Boise is an attempt to begin that process for my corner of the world. After coming across websites like The Weedalouge (cataloging the wild plants of Philadelphia), Weeds of Melbourne (“a visual glossary of the weedy heritage of Melbourne, Australia”), and Spontaneous Urban Plants (an attempt to map weeds in urban areas around globe), I decided to start the process here in Boise, Idaho. My goal is to select locations across the city and inventory the weeds found there at different times of the year. I will keep a running list of what I find and photograph as many plants as I can. I will make a separate blog post for each location and maintain a link for each post in the Weeds of Boise page. The blog posts will be updated as I collect more data for each site. Over time I hope to have a more clear picture of what weeds are found here and how they are distributed.

Because many of these plants are cosmopolitan, the weeds found in my area are likely similar to the ones found in yours, but there may be some unique differences. If more projects like this are undertaken, we will have a better idea of the similarities and differences among our urban floras. Upon closer observation, we are likely to make some interesting discoveries. Who knows what we might find once we really start looking at these obnoxiously ubiquitous but otherwise completely ignored plants?

Weeds of Boise is also a reminder that you can botanize anytime anywhere. You don’t have to jet off to some remote location to see plants. It’s likely that there are wild plants growing right outside your front door – each one with a unique name and story and just as worth getting to know as any other.

Advertisement
by

Zine Review: An Urban Field Guide to the Plants in Your Path

Depending on where you live in the world, it’s probably not too difficult to find a field guide to the plants native to your region. In fact, there may be several of them. They may not cover all the plants you’ll encounter in natural areas near you, but they’ll be a good starting point. Yet, considering that most of us live in cities these days, field guides to the wild plants of urban areas are sorely lacking. Perhaps that’s no surprise, as plants growing wild in urban areas are generally considered weeds and are often the same species that frustrate us in our yards and gardens. Few (if any) of these maligned plants are considered native, so that doesn’t help their case any. Why would we need to know or pay attention to these nuisance plants anyway?

I argue that we should know them, and not just so that we know our enemy. Weeds are the wild flora of our cities – they grow on their own without direct human intervention. In doing so, they green up derelict and neglected sites, creating habitat for all kinds of other organisms and providing a number of ecosystem services along the way. Regardless of how we feel about them for invading our cultivated spaces and interfering with our picture-perfect vision of how we feel our cities should look, they deserve a bit more respect for the work they do. If we’re not willing to go that far, we at least ought to hand it to them for how crafty and tenacious they can be. These plants are amazing whether we want to admit it or not.

Luckily I’m not the only who feels this way. Enter An Urban Field Guide to the Plants in Your Path, a zine written and illustrated by Maggie Herskovits and published by Microcosm Publishing. This zine is just one example of the resources we need to better familiarize ourselves with our urban floras. While there are many weed identification books out there, a field guide like this differs because it doesn’t demonize the plants or suggest ways that they can be brought under control or eliminated. Instead, it treats them more like welcome guests and celebrates some of their finer qualities. That being said, this is probably not a zine for everyone, particularly those that despise these plants, but take a look anyway. If you keep an open mind, perhaps you can be swayed.

Illustration of Pennsylvania smartweed (Polygonum pensylvanicum) from An Urban Field Guide to the Plants in Your Path

After a brief introduction, Herskovits profiles fifteen common urban weeds. Each entry includes an illustration of the plant, a short list of its “Urban Survival Techniques,” a small drawing of the plant in its urban habitat, and a few other details. The text is all handwritten, and the illustrations are simple but accurate enough to be helpful when identifying plants in the wild. The descriptions of each plant include interesting facts and background information, and even if you are already familiar with all the plants in the guide, you may learn something new. For example, I wasn’t aware that spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata) was native to North America.

some urban survival techniques of common mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Capsella bursa-pastoris in its urban habitat

Urban weeds often go ignored. They may not be as attractive as some of the plants found in gardens and parks around the city, and since they are often seen growing right alongside garbage, they end up getting treated that way. But if you’re convinced that they may actually have value and you want to learn a bit more about them, this guide is a great place to start. Perhaps you’ll come to feel, as Herskovits does, that “there is hope in these city plants.”

See Also: