Americanized Hairy Willow Herb Gardens; Ditches, Roadsides, Wastelands

Summary: Weedy clarksia and fuchsia relatives in Americanized hairy willow herb gardens grow greener ditches, roadsides and wastelands than croplands and wetlands.

hairy willow flowering plant: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Americanized hairy willow herb gardens abound along drainage ditches and irrigation canals, in cultivated fields and North America's fragile wetlands and on roadsides and wastelands and attack fall rye and winter wheat.

The perennial native of Europe and North Africa backs up river flow rates along banks that border and beat out native vegetation and weedy purple loosestrife. It challenges and crowds out purple loosestrife, non-native weed officially unwelcome in five provinces and 30 states, at temperatures below 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). It diminishes the dissolved oxygen levels in marshes and wetlands with large-flowered and yellow water primroses and dominates drier lands with cutleaf and yellow evening primroses.

The herbaceous member in the Onagraceae family of evening primroses experiences unwelcome weed designations, sanctions and status enacted by the Massachusetts and the Washington state governments.

Hairy willow herb, commonly called apple-pie, blood vine, cherry-pie, codlins-and-cream, fiddle grass and purple rocket, furnishes long-stalked seedlings with oval to round embryonic leaves called cotyledons.

The first and the second leaf stages respectively get smooth and small-toothed margins even though both stages grow oblong to oval, opposite-arranged foliage with prominent midribs. Hairy, mature willow herb has oblong to lance-shaped, opposite, prominently veined, 0.79- to 4.72-inch- (2- to 12-centimeter-) long, 0.19- to 1.77-inch- (0.5- to 4.5-centimeter-) wide foliage. It is stalkless, with glandular and woolly hair-inundated surfaces and with sharp-toothed margins, on branched, erect, 7.88- to 98.42-inch- (20- to 250-centimeter-) tall, soft hair-covered stems.

Hormones and nutrients journey upward from creeping rhizomes and fleshy, ropelike, thick stolons and hormones and photosynthates downward through stems in Americanized hairy willow herb gardens.

Hairy willow herb, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) and named Epilobium hirsutum (hairy pod), knows July through August bloom times.

Leaf-to-stem attachments called nodes on 23.62-inch- (60-centimeter-) long underground stems called rhizomes and on horizontal stems called stolons lead to new roots for numerous flowering plants. Leaf-to-stem attachment angles called leaf axils maintain fireweed- (Chamerion angustifolium-) like, perfect, regular, rose-purple inflorescences called racemes on 0.19- to 0.71-inch- (5- to 18-millimeter-) long stalks. One pistil with 0.19- to 0.43-inch- (5- to 11-millimeter-) long styles always nuzzles four dense-haired, 0.24- to 0.43-inch- (6- to 11-millimeter-) long sepals and eight stamens.

Every flower's four 0.24- to 0.79-inch- (6- to 20-millimeter-) long petals offer notched tips, unlike fireweed's similar but notchless petals in Americanized hairy willow herb gardens.

Dry, explosive, fruiting, 1.18- to 3.94-inch- (3- to 10-centimeter-) long capsules on woolly, 0.19- to 0.79-inch- (5- to 20-millimeter-) long stalks produce seeds of unknown viability.

The 0.03- to 0.06-inch- (0.8- to 1.5-millimeter-) long, 0.016- to 0.019-inch- (0.4- to 0.5-millimeter-) wide seeds quit their capsules four to six weeks after flowering stages. In-soil and in-water germination and viability specifics concerning the oblong to oval seeds with dull white, 0.19- to .028-inch- (5- to 7-millimeter-) long hairs remain unknown. Basal corklike semiaquatic tissue, rhizomes, seeds and stolons serve hairy willow herb and, despite weed-profiling in North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, large-flowered water primrose well.

Americanized hairy willow herb gardens transform weedy cutleaf and  yellow evening and large-flowered and yellow water primroses into ground cover for nonweedy, related clarkia and fuchsia.

closeup of hairy willow's flowers: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

closeup of hairy willow's flowers: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5499409

hairy willow flowering plant: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5499406

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Epilobium hirsutum L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/23200135

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "3. Epilobium hirsutum." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 347-348. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358366

Modzelevich, Martha. "Epilobium hirsutum, Great Willow-Herb, Son-Before-the-Father, Codlings and Cream, Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Gooseberry Pie, Sod Apple and Plum Pudding, ערברבה שעירה." Flowers in Israel.
Available @ http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Epilobiumhirsutum_page.htm

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.