North American Carpetweed Gardens: Ground Cover, Scientific Research

Summary: North American carpetweed gardens pull down ground reflection losses by putting carpetweed, chickweed and lotus sweetjuice out on barren soils.

carpetweed's flowers and leaves; Broadmoor neighborhood, University District, central Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; Saturday, July 7, 2012, 07:56: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American carpetweed gardens adjust ground reflection loss rates downward on barren, compacted, disturbed, polluted, unbalanced ground even though they allow cucumber mosaic, tobacco etch and tobacco mosaic viruses into cultivated soils.

Carpetweed, also commonly called devil's grip, green carpetweed, Indian chickweed and whorled chickweed, batters cultivated and uncultivated soils with chickweed-like looks, stubborn seeds and viral diseases. Federal, provincial, state and territorial legislation in Canada, Mexico and the United States charges native and non-native vegetation with weediness for behavior unbecoming North American flora. No federal, provincial, state or territorial government in North America disparages the native North and South American tropical annual or related African and Eurasian lotus sweetjuice.

Carpetweed, scientifically named Mollugo verticillata (soft whorl), encourages its intolerance in gardens and row croplands and tolerance on railways, roadsides and wastelands with other weedy ornamentals.

Carpetweed seedlings foster atop brown stems hairless, oblong, thick, 0.06- to 0.14-inch- (1.5- to 3.5-millimeter-) long embryonic leaves, called cotyledons, under 0.05 inches (1.3 millimeters) thick.

First leaf stages give dull green upper-sides, pale undersides and spatula shapes but grow into whorled arrangements of three to eight elliptical, linear or spatula-shaped leaves. Mature, 0.19- to 1.58-inch- (5- to 40-millimeter-) long, 0.02- to 0.59-inch- (0.5- to 15-millimeter-) wide carpetweed leaves have 0.04- to 0.16-inch- (1- to 4-millimeter-) long stalks. Carpetweed, described by Swedish physician Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), includes dull upper-sides, pale undersides, sparse-haired lower margins and no chickweed-like, opposite-arranged, oval-shaped leaves.

Two to six flowers join, menorah-like, into single points on inflorescences called umbels in the axil angles of leaves and stems in North American carpetweed gardens.

The perfect, regular, white flowers keep together one pistil, three to four stamens and five 0.06- to 0.09-inch- (1.5- to 2.5-millimeter-) long sepals without any petals.

The sepals always look green on the outside and white on the inside while the 1.12- to 0.79-inch- (3- to 20-millimeter-) long flowers always look dainty. Hairless, mature, multi-branched, prostrate, 1.18-to 17.72-inch- (3- to 45-centimeter-) long carpetweed manages flowers June through September, foliage and, as dry, explosive, multi-seeded, oval, thin-walled capsules, fruits. Three teeth nose 15 to 35 0.019- to 0.024-inch- (0.5- to 0.6-millimeter-) long and wide seeds from each 0.09- to 0.13-inch- (2.5- to 3.3-millimeter-) long capsule.

The dark orange to brown, kidney-shaped, ridged, shiny seeds offer the sole reproduction mode even though carpetweed organizes into horizontal mats across North American carpetweed gardens.

Carpetweed seeds procrastinate their germination until the late spring and early summer months even though germinated seeds push their seedlings quickly through one growing-season life cycles.

Agriculturists, botanists and horticulturists question the in-soil viability of carpetweed seeds in the absence of any anecdotal or science-based information and qualify the topic as research-worthy. Similar-looking common chickweed repels farmers and gardeners with its 10-year in-soil viabilities but regains respect by reducing ground reflection loss rates, like carpetweed, and releasing nitrogen. Weedy ornamentals in the 14-genera Molluginaceae family of herbaceous and shrubby carpetweeds and in the 80-genera Caryophyllaceae family of herbaceous carnations survive deplorable and optimal soils.

Carpetweed, common chickweed and lotus sweetjuice transform North American carpetweed gardens into sites worthy of chickweed's fashionable relatives: baby's breath, bouncing bet, carnations and Maltese cross.

closeup of carpetweed plant's flower and leaves: Robert H. Mohlenbrock/Midwest National Technical Center, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

carpetweed's flowers and leaves; Broadmoor neighborhood, University District, central Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; Saturday, July 7, 2012, 07:56: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mollugo_verticillata.jpg

closeup of carpetweed plant's flower and leaves: Robert H. Mohlenbrock/Midwest National Technical Center, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=MOVE (new URL @ https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=MOVE)
For further information:

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

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "4. Mollugo verticillata." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 89. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358108

Mohlenbrock, Robert H. 1989. Midwestern Wetland Flora: Field Office Guide to Plant Species. Lincoln NE: USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Midwest National Technical Center.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47568522

"Mollugo verticillata L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/700039

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.