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RE: What is this monster plant? Need help identifying.
When I first saw the leaves and the yellow flowers (they do mimic dandelions) my first thought was wild lettuce. I have some growing in the back behind the house and I leave it. The first year or two it won't grow tall, but once it matures some it will grow 3-6 feet in height.
Here is a good description and you'll see in the video with the guy kneeling down, the wild lettuce is quite tall
http://www.skilledsurvival.com/wild-lettuce/
I thought wild lettuce too
When I dug it up, there was a wild lettuce hiding behind it. It is in a much smaller life stage. I left it so I could get some photos of it today, but it will have to go too because it is in the tomato bed. Only onions, garlic, marigolds and tomatoes in the bed, lol.
It is possible it is in the same family, but the leaves on all the wild lettuce photos I am seeing don't look the same. Most of the wild lettuce has leaves that are sort of like a bunch of triangles attached to the stem. This leave is much wider where it attaches to the stem and narrows to a point at the end. The edges of the leaves are curled, but a solid shape from end to end.
I happened across a photo of just the flowers that looked almost exactly the same. They said it was a spiny sowthistle. I just started researching spiny sowthistle, but I have a feeling it is part of the same family. spiny sowthistle is part of the dandelion family and I have found several photos that look a lot like what's in my yard. The only difference is all the purple on the stems and leave. All the spiny sowthistle photos don't have the purple.
But so far, none of the photos has been identical enough to what is in my yard for me to feel comfortable that it is a match. Lots of similarities, but no exact matches yet.
Plus, how did this thing grow so quickly? Three feet in 2 weeks? Have aliens invaded or something, lol.
I cut a leaf off from about half way up the thing. There are some bigger and some smaller. This one is about 10 1/2 inches long and there was another 2 inches or so where I couldn't get the scissors all the way up to the stem.
This is the backside:
Funny thing. Just 40 some odd minutes ago when I was out there, all the blossoms had disappeared. Now, only of them has opened back up, but now it is a shaggy white, almost furry looking thing instead of the yellow dandelion like flowers from earlier.
I'm telling you, it's an alien!
@goldendawne I think it is a Spiny Sow Thistle. I would say for sure it is spiny sow thistle if it were not for the purple stems. I have yet to see a single photo of one with purple stems, but everything else is 100% correct.
It is considered an invasive species in Georgia. It is edible, just like a dandelion and it is in the dandelion family. It is considered less bitter than dandelion, but with this thing growing so fast, I am not going to let it stay around to see what happened.
In about 2 hours, it has gone from fully opened flowers, to zero opened flowers, to the furry start of seed heads. I can understand why both Georgia and Florida have it on their list of highly invasive plants. Hopefully, I have caught it before the root system has had a chance to get established because it can spread through the root system and seeds.
Thank you much for your help! Your wild lettuce suggestion led me to a prickly wild lettuce which led me to spiny sow thistle, lol.
If it were wild lettuce it would bleed a milky substance.
When I squeezed the stem I cut off, it had a milky sap. But that is also common with the spiny sow thistle. I dug it up because it was in my tomato bed. But I have seen several images and videos and I am satisfied it is spiny sow thistle.