Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Awakening of Less Cheerful Feelings on Arrival Home

Such pretty flowers. They start as cerise buds, turn to purple flowers and fade to blue.


The problem is that it's Paterson's Curse, one of the worst pasture weeds west of the ranges! So what on earth is it doing in my back yard? My guess is that it came with the chook feed.

The native blue-banded bee likes the flowers, as did another smaller bee that moved too fast for me to photograph. Beekeepers refer to the plant as Salvation Jane, since it provides forage for bees during drought and produces a delicious honey.


This plant was only 30cm high (they grow to about 120cm), but the tap root was already 1cm thick when the Geek pulled it out on Saturday. We hope it will not resprout. I've never seen Paterson's Curse in Sydney -- it's an echium, and prefers a Mediterranean climate. There is a distant view of Paterson's Curse in a previous post.

I hadn't found a reason to cook this lovely beetroot before we left, but just had to pull it on the weekend as it was getting a bit too big. That's a four-cup teapot behind for scale. Still haven't worked out what to do with the beetroot!

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Chookie, such a pretty flower, and good for bees, too bad it is an invasive. That is a giant beet! Almost too scary to eat. :-)
Frances

Onesimus said...

I have seen a local honey producer selling "Riverina Bluebell" honey - like "Salvation Jane" it sounds much more palatable than "Patterson's Curse".

Carol said...

at least it's a pretty weed

Kelley @ magnetoboldtoo said...

mmmmmm, I LOVE beetroot!

We have every single noxious weed in our yard EXCEPT Pattersons Curse.

It is only a matter of time...

Garry Allen said...

the best thing about paterson's curse are the tiny spines on the stem. pulling them bare handed leaves more splinters than running your hand down unseasoned hard wood

Chookie said...

Garry, the Geek was lucky as our Riverina Bluebell was only a young'un.

Kelley, we even had a castor oil plant when we moved in. Now we're down to the ochna and asparagus weed. We also have an arum lily, and plenty of onion weed, woody pear and -- gah! -- kikuyu.

Folks, still haven't worked out what to do with the beetroot -- most likely it will be roasted and made into a salad.

Jayne said...

Oh, I hadn't realised Paterson's Curse was part of the Echium family but it makes sense.

A great Maggie Beer recipe is to wash and clean the beetroot but then grate it raw into a salad with tossed greens and orange zest.

Lightening said...

I think it tends to be referred to more as Salvation Jane than Paterson's Curse here although when Farmboy spotted some in the paddock he was like "where did that come from".

家出 said...
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困っています。 said...
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野外露出 said...
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