Pigweed By Any Other Name

Thirty-one years ago I wrote a poem called The Gift crediting my mother for teaching me the identities of trees, flowers, plants, herbs, etc. (Blogged about on August 8, 2012.) Most of what she shared with me as a child has stuck with me throughout my life. Once in awhile I have learned there are other, more proper names for plants than what she called them. Asiatic dayflower aka dayflower weed instead of what she (and I) called/call monkey face is a good example. (Blogged about September 5, 2016.)

Yesterday I not only learned a new name for this plant, which I have called pigweed all my life because I thought that is what Mom told me it was, I figured out why I thought that's what it was.

I did some cropping and adjusting on the photo to post it on Instagram. And because I wanted to also use its real name, I did some research.

Starting with pigweed which lead me to this plant, Palmer's Pigweed aka Amaranthus palmeri, which are edible by pigs and humans - at least some of the amaranthus varieties are.

When I finally found a name for my pigweed - by googling 'weeds with small white and pink flowers' until I found a picture that looked right - the name of it was Pennsylvania Smartweed or Pink Knotweed.

But wasn't 'smartweed' the one that stung if touched and could cause a rash? No. That's stinging nettle.

I wandered from one google result to another until I found that another name for Pennsylvania Smartweed and/or Pink Knotweed is Pinkweed.  PINKWEED not PIGWEED as I had obviously misheard it!

All these years of calling it pigweed. Will I be able to retrain myself? Probably not. After all I still call these little blue flowers.....
 

.............monkey face.