When did a dandelion become a weed? Was it ever considered a flower? I find the bright yellow petals quite beautiful. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, a weed is just “a plant whose virtue has not yet been discovered?” If that’s true, then I suppose this is really just a matter of perspective. Here’s mine. The characteristics of a weed seem positive to me.

According to the Weed Science Society of America, “They tend to produce lots of seed — sometimes tens of thousands of seeds per plant. Their seed can sometimes survive for a very long time in the soil, going dormant but then sprouting just as soon as conditions are right. Simply disturbing the soil is often enough to trigger new growth. They are able to establish themselves quickly. Sometimes they seem to crop up in the blink of the eye. They often have mechanisms that enable them to spread easily, such as the ability to reproduce vegetatively without seeds. They can grow in inhospitable locales where more desirable plants typically wouldn’t survive.”

By another definition, a weed is any plant that grows in spite of efforts to make sure it does not. It thrives under difficulty, grows in opposition to efforts to stop it, and then spreads its seeds. I don’t know about you, but I kinda want to become a weed.

Jeff Turner

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