Mystery ID of the day

Still no camera. That stuff is expensive and the less expensive it is the quicker it turns to fried circuits in a wet dusty muddy world full of slips and falls.

But I think someone will be able to get this one:

It looks like a balmy minty thin. It's hardy and opportunistic. It has little pink flowers which almost look like a scuttelaria in 8s and alternating pares of leaves up the stem. I am nearly certain it came in on horse manure. It does not seem pleasant in the least except the early little flowers for to pollinators.

The cheapest and most bulletproof cameras that I've seen,  are used iphones that are available for free or cheap. There's no need to get a phone plan with these.  Just use the WiFi  when you are in a public  place.

My daughter spent $10.00 on a used phone when she moved to Korea.  For the last year, she has had no cost. We use the kakao talk app which allows us to send voice,  text, video and photos all for free.

How does it smell and taste?

Dale Hodgins wrote:The cheapest and most bulletproof cameras that I've seen,  are used iphones that are available for free or cheap. There's no need to get a phone plan with these.  Just use the WiFi  when you are in a public  place.

On WiFi? How how how? I traded my bottle cap collection for a first or second generation Iphone around 2 or 3 years ago and it won't do shit without an ATT sim card. I still have it in a drawer somewhere.

Matu Collins wrote:How does it smell and taste?

Seriously? I will attempt to describe such things tomorrow after some exposure and reflection. Not palatable. Lets start there.

Also,

It looks like catnip. I mean, totally not catnip. It doesn't look anything like catnip. But if I didn't know anything about plants and it was growing with a bunch of catnip it would become totally lost and I'd think it was catnip or something very similar. <More helpful? Less helpful?

Does it have sort of a loose and juicy feel? I'm guessing a henbane?

Henbane? I am unfamiliar

Defiantly not 'Hyoscyamus niger'

More like tough and fuzzy. Like lemon balm but not a succulent. Drier and with itchier looking finer hairs i think. But it is dark here so I will doubly check that tomorrow if it is still a mystery plant by then.

Landon Sunrich wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:The cheapest and most bulletproof cameras that I've seen,  are used iphones that are available for free or cheap. There's no need to get a phone plan with these.  Just use the WiFi  when you are in a public  place.

On WiFi? How how how? I traded my bottle cap collection for a first or second generation Iphone around 2 or 3 years ago and it won't do shit without an ATT sim card. I still have it in a drawer somewhere.

https://permies.com/t/42756/frugality/Kakao-Talk-app-replaces-expensive

The SIM card is only required if you're trying to make a phone call on a network. The phone should work as a computer regardless.

Take it to a coffee shop where university students gather.  One of them will know how to make this work.

Many foreign-exchange students have a phone that is not hooked to network. They simply use it for calling home, using one of those free apps.
If you have kakao talk, you can speak to anyone in the world for free. There's another one called line. More convenient than Skype.

Dale Hodgins wrote:

The SIM card is only required if you're trying to make a phone call on a network. The phone should work as a computer regardless.

This has most defiantly not been my experience but I have yet to become acquainted with these alien lifeforms. I will try again, though I am kinda in the middle of nowhere surrounded by retirees. Any guesses on the plant ID? I see this one on overused pasture and the edges of paths where there is bare ground pretty regularly.

Fairly certain it is not on this list

http://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/content/welcome-pnw-weed-identification-module

My daughter is coming back in March. If she doesn't want the phone anymore,  I will send it to you with the app already loaded. Without a network, it's not a phone. It's a handy little computer with a camera, flashlight, clock, address book. ... but you can still make phone calls.

henbit, not henbane! sorry, brain glitch. Some people call it dead nettle. I've heard that it's edible but my pharmacognosy sense tells me not to eat it.



It's got a weird sort of juiciness

That might be right but defiantly not at this time of year and probably not under these soil conditions. Mine are a light lime green. Or some such shade.

Yeah, alright.

I'm becoming more and more inclined to think it is in fact some sort of Lamium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium

I also don't know how far I trust Wikipedia sometimes

Associated moth and Larva info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setaceous_Hebrew_character

Almost certainly a Lamium

https://utextension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W165.pdf

Thanks! Who's up next?

Landon Sunrich wrote:Almost certainly a Lamium

https://utextension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W165.pdf

Funnest facts: "Purple deadnettle and henbit have been found to be an overwintering host for soybean cyst nematode. Purple deadnettle has beenfound to produce more than 27,000 seeds per plant"

I don't know if I need that much of this stuff around.

Me next, me next!
Identify this lemony herb?
This plant is used as a lemony flavoring herb in some parts of Ladakh and called tsamik. It looks to me like it's in the mint family but not a mint. I planted some seeds of it in October and they have been growing in my unheated greenhouse, not bothered by nights below freezing for the whole month of January. I think it's an annual, not a spreading perennial type of mint-family member.

Lemon balm is in the mint family. Leaf shape looks similar to me.

Yes it does! Now I've googled lemon balm, and now as my seedlings get bigger I'll be able to check and see if the texture also matches.
THANK YOU!

That does not resemble any lemon balm I am familiar with. I am pretty sure I've seen that plant around though. Have you been able to ID it yet Rebecca?

Anyone think they've got the latin name on this one yet? Where's Linnaeus when you need him?

Yeah, today my brother in law, a Ladakhi who knows a lot of plants, said mine (in the photo above) is indeed Ladakhi tsamik, but is not the same as the "lemon balm / melissa" that he was given by a foreigner and grows. Similar but not the same.

I was just too impatient. I'll wait till this is bigger and then post again, if "Oxford Flowers of the Himalayas" and clicking around don't tell me. It'll be a few months.

Okay, I've got another one I'm insatiably curious about. The closed I've come to ID is the "Cow Parsnip"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_maximum

But I'm not sure if that's right or not.

It thrives on the collapsing bluff anyway their is clay sloughing. It does best in the high organic mater clay (the stuff that's been sliding along the low spots beneath alder canopy for awhile) but seems to grown anywhere any clay has dripped and flowed. It has thick rhizome roots and large green leaves and the flower clusters come up as globes on the ends of a spike. Like a ball of little white flowers. I haven't seen them branch out and get all carotty but that may just be the season. The flower globe in turn is a bunch of small round clusters made up of tiny 5 pointed white flowers with a white and purple whatcha macallit "stamen", I think. Stem of larger leaves and flower spike hollow with long stringy vertical fibers. Definitely not any of the stuff wikipedia says might be mistaken for 'Cow parsnip' But I am not sure what it is.

Questions? Comments? Anything else people can think of which would be similar or match my description?

I'm looking through the gallery here.

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?where-lifeform=any&rel-taxon=contains&where-taxon=&rel-namesoup=contains&where-namesoup=cow+parsnip&rel-location=like&where-location=&rel-county=eq&where-county=any&rel-state=eq&where-state=any&rel-country=eq&where-country=any&where-collectn=any&rel-photographer=eq&where-photographer=any&rel-kwid=equals&where-kwid=

Really similar. Not quite the same. Probably under the same category? I shall await comments.

Hey Landon,

I live in Portland and I believe you're probably seeing Cow Parsnip. If it just started blooming, that's probably it. They can get to be huge, and the leaves are big and thick unlike poison hemlock which more resembles a carrot. Both have blotchy red stems and I believe Cow Parsnip has some phototoxicity but it is native to our area. Don't eat it either way. A lot of the apiaceae are very poisonous. You can eat the root of Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot) before it flowers but it's probably not that great. Steve Solomon says that when the Cow Parsnip is in full bloom, it's time to transplant your tomatoes. :]

this is a good shot of cow parsnip
I believe cow parsnip has fuzzy stems as well, whereas posion hemlock has very smooth ones and it smells foul if you crush the leaves. no sure of the smell of cow parsnip, i'll have to give it a try. Also, I don't think Cow Parsnip is rhizomatous but it likely has very thick roots.



this is a good shot of poison hemlock without it's blooms

^ I believe the photo toxicity comes from contacting the plant, well I know I should say. Not sure if eating it causes the same but I'd steer clear of it, especially if you sunburn easily like I do