To understand the current state of rangeland wildfires in the Intermountain West, you must first familiarize yourself with a plant commonly referred to as cheatgrass. This annual grass moved into the region over a century ago, and its spread has had a massive impact on the environment, as well as the economy and our way of life. Just the very mention of cheatgrass in the West will get some people’s blood boiling. It’s a menace, a scourge, a pest, and yet it’s here to stay. It’s a result of us being here, yet somehow it’s the invader. Its success is largely due to the way we’ve chosen to operat ..read more

As soon as I learned that the Western Society of Weed Science‘s annual meeting was going to be held in Boise in 2023, I began making plans to attend. I had attended the annual meeting in 2018 when it was held in Garden Grove, California and had been thinking about it ever since. It’s not every year that a meeting like this comes to your hometown, so it was an opportunity I knew I couldn’t miss. The meeting was combined with the Western Aquatic Plant Managment Society‘s annual meeting, so consider that a bonus. The first meeting of the week was the general session where introductions are made ..read more

Learning to identify Kentucky coffeetree in the winter brings you one step closer to making a coffee-like (albeit caffeine-free) beverage from its seeds. Humans have a long history of occasionally using the “beans” of Gymnocladus dioicus to make this tisane, which explains common names like coffeetree, American coffee berry, and coffeenut. The process is a bit time consuming, and the end result is mixed, but foraging adventures like this are all about the experience. This drink is not likely to replace whatever you are currently drinking in the morning, but it does offer an interesting diversi ..read more

A few years ago, I was on the hunt for a Kentucky coffeetree. I was aware that a few could be found in some of the parks around Boise, but not being familiar with them, I wasn’t sure where exactly to find one or what I was even looking for. One winter while riding my bike to work, I noticed a tree at the edge of a golf course. No doubt I had passed this tree hundreds (if not thousands) of times. What caught my eye were thick, bean-like pods hanging from the ends of branches. They were unlike any other tree fruits I was familiar with. I stopped and, with a little effort, knocked one of the pods ..read more

Urban areas are increasingly being studied for their potential to help conserve biodiversity and provide habitat for numerous plants and animals. Despite the harsh conditions of the built environment, organisms of all kinds are able to survive in our cities, and as we find ways to make these spaces more hospitable for them, cities actually have great potential for species conservation, even for species that are rare, threatened, or specialized. One obvious way to accomplish this is to manage our yards, parks, and gardens as habitat, such as planting flower strips for pollinators. Another way ..read more

It’s time to look back on 2022. But before we do that, I have to acknowledge that January 2023 marks Awkward Botany’s 10 year anniversary. This time ten years ago, I was drafting the introductory post to this blog. Obviously, a lot has happened since then, yet it still seems like yesterday somehow. And while I may not be posting with the frequency that I once was, I’m still at it, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. There is so much we have yet to cover. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface of what the world of plants has to offer. If you’d like to look back on what I’ve writ ..read more

Last summer I came across a downy woodpecker hammering away at the stalk of a sunflower. I wondered what it was going after, and so I split open a stalk lengthwise to find the center of the stem hollowed out and several small larvae squirming through the debris left behind. A quick internet search later and I was learning about sunflower stem weevils, specifically Cylindrocopturus adspersus, which seems to be the species getting the most attention online and the stem-dwelling weevil that commercial sunflower growers seem most concerned about. However, the range of sunflower stem weevil doesn’t ..read more

One of the world’s most beloved beverages comes from a species of plant found in the fourth largest family of flowering plants. Rubiaceae, also known as the coffee or bedstraw family, consists of around 13,500 species, placing it behind just Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, and Fabaceae for the most number of species. Coffea arabica, and other species in the genus Coffea, are grown for their fruits which are used to make coffee. This makes Rubiaceae one of the most economically important plant families. A family this size is bound to be home to a weed or two, and in fact, one of the most widespread an ..read more