Chickweed Flower Comparison
Just a little illustration to get ready for next year's spring wildflower walks. These are flower illustrations of our most common native chickweed (left) and three invasive chickweeds (right), colored in with Photoshop to make it easier to distinguish sepals and petals. I tried to adjust for size so they should be approximately in the correct ratio for size comparison. Stellaria pubera flowers are about half an inch across. There is a reason the native chickweed is also called Giant Chickweed! Their flowers are much larger than any of the tiny ones of the invasives.
Another thing to note: There are actually two genera commonly referred to as chickweeds: Stellaria and Cerastium. The way to tell them apart is by the depth of the notches on the petals. They all have five petals, but in Stellaria they are so deeply notched that they appear as ten. In Cerastium the notches don't go as deep.
The original flower pictures are from the illustrated flora by Britton & Brown, published in 1913 (now public domain), and were downloaded from the USDA PLANTS database.
Chickweed Flower Comparison
Just a little illustration to get ready for next year's spring wildflower walks. These are flower illustrations of our most common native chickweed (left) and three invasive chickweeds (right), colored in with Photoshop to make it easier to distinguish sepals and petals. I tried to adjust for size so they should be approximately in the correct ratio for size comparison. Stellaria pubera flowers are about half an inch across. There is a reason the native chickweed is also called Giant Chickweed! Their flowers are much larger than any of the tiny ones of the invasives.
Another thing to note: There are actually two genera commonly referred to as chickweeds: Stellaria and Cerastium. The way to tell them apart is by the depth of the notches on the petals. They all have five petals, but in Stellaria they are so deeply notched that they appear as ten. In Cerastium the notches don't go as deep.
The original flower pictures are from the illustrated flora by Britton & Brown, published in 1913 (now public domain), and were downloaded from the USDA PLANTS database.