# What is this plant??????



## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

IT looked liek dandelion at first and then it changed. I thought it was some kind of chicory, but some people suggested it was dock. It looks edible to me.
http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/k638/joyjoy47/Strangeplanttwoupclose.jpg

http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/k638/joyjoy47/Strangeplantone.jpg


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## fernando (Jan 11, 2005)

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/CommonPlantain.html


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

It might be that


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## Phillip (Feb 6, 2006)

Looks like a young sour dock plant to me. 


Link: http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=ipm1007-43


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Not Plantain, I think , like Phillip, it is a dock, sour-yellow or curly dock. > Marc


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

It looks like "curly dock" (Rumex crispus) and could be "broadleaf dock" (Rumex obtusifolius); but because the outside of the leaves curl, I lean toward identifying it as the former rather than the latter.

Notice how the veins run. One goes down the middle of the leaf with others coming off that main vein. (Plantain does "not" have veins like this. The plantain veins all come from the base of the leaf and run in the same direction.)

Now pull one up and check the roots. Do they remind you of turnips? Are they forked?

Watch it as it grows. Does parts of it turn red? (No it is not poke salet!)

What you are showing looks like what I've been harvesting for my family to eat. It is delicious when parboiled and I've already put up half a dozen packages (blanched) for later use. Just add a little butter and we have a great leafy vegetable!

To be sure, you can always pull up the entire plant and carry it over to your local agricultural agent to send off to their lab for identification; but I would suspect they will tell you it is the Rumex crispux.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Ok, here is an update. I just put a little in my mouth to taste it and it tasted like it had a zing to it, like a lemon or radish flavor. Does curly dock have this flavor? also, it looks like the vain towards the plant is turning a little redish.


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## Old Swampgirl (Sep 28, 2008)

I don't know, but I have lots of it. When mine are mature, they stand about 4 ft. & make seed heads that look similar to grain amaranth. My chickens love it! Guess I'll have to try it for myself.


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## Tiempo (May 22, 2008)

Dock does have a lemony flavor, some excellent info here..

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q-...Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=dock plant flavor&f=false


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

thanks for the link


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

Looks like plantain to me. Plantain is edible, and good for you as well! I always tell my nephew NOT to weed eat them, unless they are growing around the lagoon.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

earthkitty said:


> Looks like plantain to me. Plantain is edible, and good for you as well! I always tell my nephew NOT to weed eat them, unless they are growing around the lagoon.


Why not near the lagoon?


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

City Bound said:


> Why not near the lagoon?


We keep the growth around the lagoon trimmed way down, so nothing restricts wind/sun, which the lagoon has to have to function properly.

That, and I don't want to eat things fertilized with poo.


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

Oh wait, if you truly are city bound you may not know what I mean. Out here in the country, we don't have sewer or septic systems. We have lagoons, which is an open waste treatment system that uses sun and wind to deal with waste water.

Things grow very well, and very green, around it.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Oh Ok. Yes, I truely am city bound. What state are you in? Do those lagoons stink? YOu cant eat the greens that grow around the lagoon because of disease, or is it just the poo-factor that grosses you out? 

Kitty, check this out, it is the same things as the lagoon, except it is more useful:
http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biogas.html


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## agr8day (Sep 14, 2009)

Well, maybe not "people poo", although back in the 1800's and beyond, "night soil engineers" cleaned out the old two-holer behind the house and, yes, the ones in-house, and spread that on the fields as fertilizer. Didn't compost it first, either. Farmers today spread plenty of animal manure on the fields as fertilizer. When composted, one poo is as good as another as that takes care of most disease organisms...


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

agr, I tend not to use any meat-eater compost around edibles, but I am starting a composter for the dog/cat poo. After 18-24 months that will be used around non-edibles.

I have no problem composting any kind of poo, but hubby would NEVER let me.


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

City Bound said:


> Oh Ok. Yes, I truely am city bound. What state are you in? Do those lagoons stink? YOu cant eat the greens that grow around the lagoon because of disease, or is it just the poo-factor that grosses you out?
> 
> Kitty, check this out, it is the same things as the lagoon, except it is more useful:
> http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biogas.html


Holy cow, that is so cool! I would love to incorporate that here on my homestead. Thanks for that link, I have saved it for future study.

I'm in Kansas, lagoons are the way things are done here in the country, in Missouri too. Lagoons are a fascinating biosystem, I think. All waste water flows from the house through underground pipes, into the lagoon. The sun heats it, the wind churns it. It is completely self neutralizing. I'm probably one of seven people in the whole world who think that lagoons are interesting.  They only stink once in the spring as it thaws out. I love the fact that they use no energy to take it to a treatment plant, and no underground tank to sit for decades, seeping out into the ground water.

I have things growing everywhere that we eat, so I see no reason to take a chance eating things that have been fertilized by human excrement. I would worry about bacteria.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Kitty, those biogas digestors are cool. Theres a company based in india that sells a manufactured biogas digestor system for about $500. I dont have the link for that right now. The chinese have been doing this since the 70's. 
here is cool link to some info on the chinese experiments. They cook and light the homes with it. The chinese use pig-poop also. Once the poop is all done it is safe to use as fertilizer...all the human pathogens are dead.
http://www.cityfarmer.org/biogasPaul.html
You will see a lady in one picture in the above link next to a gauge and a valve system, that is how they manage the gas in the the house, the guage tells you how much gas is in the system for use and the different valves direct it around the house.

In urban india people use these methane digesters for home food straps.

The lagoons sound cool to me also, I just wouldnt want to fall in one. Stinky-stinky!
I agree I like the simplicity and the earthiness of it.


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## earthkitty (Mar 3, 2011)

Why is it other countries see the value in it, and the US ignores it completely?

Now I have to cram my brain full of more information.  Thanks again.

Funny, but the ducks just LOVE the lagoon. Go figure.


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## hoggie (Feb 11, 2007)

It's not plantain. Hard to judge the scale of it - could be dock, or it could be sorrel - especially if it tastes lemony 

hoggie


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

I agree with hoggie. That is not plantain. This is plantain. See how the veins in the leaves all run up from the base of the leaf? We have it growing everywhere here.


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