Chickweed

 Yesterday’s note about Eloise Butler was prompted by a question about common chickweed.

Q. When did Stellaria media, a native of Eurasia and North Africa, arrive in North America?

A. It was reported in New England in 1672.

European immigrants brought seeds from their farms, and where you have grain seed you have weed seed.

Chickweed thrives in winter in the Georgia Piedmont. You see it everywhere: lawns, rights of way, deep woods.

I’m not sure when, if ever, an invasive species stops being an invasive species. But it seems to me that chickweed has crossed some kind of threshold.

• Source: Information from the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minneapolis is here:

https://friendsofeloisebutler.org/pages/plants/commonchickweed.html

The reference to a journal in 1672 was in other sources. But I was impressed by the effort of the Minnesotans to educate people about a plant that is so common it’s often overlooked.