When the spring starts its activity, weed are visible at once on the surface of the ground. They are usually small, delicate and so beautiful but it's very hard to throw they our gardens out. Nor from OFG:(

Is not sonchus arvensis beautiful? 

Dandelion. Fractal created by Lynn. She used Fractal Explorer.

Sonchus arvensis, the field milk thistle, field sowthistle, perennial sow-thistle, corn sow thistle, dindle, gutweed, swine thistle, or tree sow thistle, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. S. arvensis often occurs in annual crop fields and may cause substantial yield losses.

                        

Sonchus arvensis. Fractal created by Krys. She used Incendia

The plant grows up to 1.5 metres in height, with leaves 10-35 cm long and 4–14 cm wide.It produces conspicuous yellow flowerheads about 3–5 cm

 wide, which are visited by various types of insects—especially hoverflies of the genus Eristalis.

Sonchus arvensis is native to Europe, where it is widespread across most of the continent. It has also become naturalized in many other regions, and is considered an invasive noxious weed in some places, such as North America (including Prince Edward Island), Russia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia.

It grows in areas such as pastures, roadsides, bushlands and the shorelines of lakes, rivers and sea coast.

USES

The young leaves, when less than a few inches long and not bitter in taste, can be mixed with other greens to make salad. They can also be boiled in a small quantity of water, changed once. The plant can contain toxic nitrates.

 

Jaskier polny/Ranuculus arvensis. Fractal created by Krys. She used INCENDIA

Ranunculus arvensis, the corn buttercup, devil-on-all-sides or scratch bur, is a plant species of the genus Ranunculus. It is native to Europe, but it can be found on other continents as an introduced species and sometimes a weed, including in North America and Australia. It was formerly a common annual arable weed in Britain, but is now rare there. It is most often found in moist places, such as spring puddles in meadows.

 

Cornflower. Fractal created by Lynn. Used Fractal Explorer.

    Centaurea cyanus, commonly known as cornflower or bachelor's button, is an annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae native to Europe. In the past, it often grew as a weed in cornfields (in the broad sense of "corn", referring to grains, such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats), hence its name. It is now endangered in its native habitat by agricultural intensification, particularly by over-use of herbicides. However, Centaurea cyanus is now also naturalised in many other parts of the world, including North America and parts of Australia through introduction as an ornamental plant in gardens and as a seed contaminant in crop seeds.

Centaurea cyanus is an annual plant growing to 40–90 cm tall, with grey-green branched stems. The leaves are lanceolate and 1–4 cm long. The flowers are most commonly an intense blue colour and arranged in flowerheads (capitula) of 1.5–3 cm diameter, with a ring of a few large, spreading ray florets surrounding a central cluster of disc florets. The blue pigment is protocyanin, which in roses is red. Fruits are approx. 3.5 mm long with 2–3 mm long pappus bristles. It flowers all summer.

 Centaurea cyanus. Fractal created by Alida. Used Apo. 

    Centaurea cyanus is native to temperate Europe, but is widely naturalized outside its native range. It has been present in Britain and Ireland as an archaeophyte (ancient introduction) since the Iron Age.^[ In the United Kingdom, it has declined from 264 sites to just 3 sites in the last 50 years. In reaction to this, the conservation charity Plantlife named it as one of 101 species it would actively work to bring 'back from the brink'.

In the County Clare (VC H9) in Ireland, Centaurea cyanus is recorded in arable fields as very rare and almost extinct, while in the North-East of Ireland, it was abundant before the 1930s.

    Centaurea cyanus is considered a noxious weed in arable crops, especially cereals and rapeseed. In winter wheat, one plant per m² can cause a yield loss of up to 30 kg / ha. Centaurea cyanus produces around 800 seed per plant, which are either shed shortly before the harvest of cereals, or they are threshed together with the cereal grains, contributing to the further spread of the species by the harvesting machinery and contaminated seed. The occurrence of Centaurea cyanus strongly decreased during the last decades due to improved seed cleaning, more intensive nitrogen fertilization and herbicide use. However, Centaurea cyanus has become more common in cropland due to an increase in crop rotations dominated by winter cereals and rapeseed and the use of more selective herbicides with a low effectiveness against Centaurea cyanus. In addition, the emergence of resistance against the herbicide class of sulfonylureas has been reported recently. Due to its strong roots, Centaurea cyanus is difficult to control mechanically in spring.

text below All About Cornflower (americanmeadows.com)

    Centaurea cyanus is a member of the Asteracea or Compositae family, which is a large and widespread group of plants that includes sunflowers, daisies, and asters. The genus is Centaurea, which includes both annual and perennial varieties. The following description focuses on C. cyanus, which is the annual flower, grown easily from seed and popular as a bedding plant or cut flower for home gardeners and florists.

Centaurea cyanus readily grow from seed and will thrive when sown indoors in pots 4 weeks before a frost-free date, then transplanted, or outdoors directly in the garden.

Centaurea cyanus is often used as a boutonniere in weddings, and because of their popularity, have been bred to produce plants for a wider range of blossom colors, including white, pink, red-purple, deep burgundy (sometimes called black) and the crisp blue which is the only true natural color.

Centaurea cyanus is called ‘Bluet’ in England and ‘Bluebonnet’ in Scotland, in North America they are sometimes called Ragged Robin, or Ragged Sailor because of the shaggy petals. They are one of the few true blue flowers that are also edible, imparting a sweet cucumber like taste. In the garden, they are visually stunning planted with brightly colored Nasturtiums, Marigold and California Poppies. In a vase, they blend well with Snapdragons, Sweet William and Love-in-a-Mist (or Nigella)

The Centaurea cyanus shape and brilliant blue color is similar to chicories, and has many associations throughout the world; it is the national flower of Estonia, representing the Estonian political party, and a symbol for social liberalism with the Swedish National Party. The blue cornflower also plays a role in German history, thanks to Queen Luis of Prussia who purportedly hid her children in a field of cornflowers. 

Centaurea cyanus blue was adopted for the uniforms of the Prussian army. In France, the cornflower is a common symbol for veterans of World War to wear, as a reminder of the 1918 Armistice, similar to the remembrance of poppies worn in the UK and Canada.

Fractal created by Alida. She used APO.

    Carduus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, and the tribe Cardueae, one of two genera considered to be true thistles, the other being Cirsium. Plants of the genus are known commonly as plumeless thistles. They are native to Eurasia and Africa, and several are known elsewhere as introduced species. This genus is noted for its disproportionately high number of noxious weeds compared to other flowering plant genera.

These are usually annual or biennial herbs, sometimes perennial. Species often grow 2 meters in height but are known to reach 4 meters. The erect stems are winged and spiny, and usually have woolly hairs. The leaf blades are hairy to hairless and entire or divided into lobes, and they have spine-toothed edges. The flower heads are solitary or borne in inflorescences of up to 20. The head is spherical to cylindrical and covered in several layers of spreading or curving spine-tipped phyllaries. It contains long, tubular disc florets in shades of white, pink, or purple. The fruit is a cypsela tipped with a pappus of barbed bristles or scales.

Several Carduus are notorious invasive plants outside their native range, for example, in Australia and the United States. Species such as C. acanthoides, C. nutans, C. pycnocephalus, and C. tenuiflorus easily become weedy in disturbed habitat, such as overgrazed pasture. C. nutans is allelopathic, producing compounds that inhibit the growth and development of other plants.

Agents of biological pest control that have been used against weedy Carduus thistles include the thistle head weevil (Rhinocyllus conicus), thistle crown weevil (Trichosirocalus horridus), and thistle crown fly (Cheilosia corydon). The musk thistle rust (Puccinia carduorum), a fungus, may also be used against C. nutans.

 

Leucanthemum vulgare, commonly known as the ox-eye daisy, oxeye daisy, dog daisy, marguerite (French: Marguerite commune, "common marguerite") and other common names, is a widespread flowering plant native to Europe and the temperate regions of Asia, and an introduced plant to North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Leucanthemum vulgare is a perennial herb that grows to a height of 60 cm (24 in) or more and has a creeping underground rhizome. The lower parts of the stem are hairy, sometimes densely hairy but more or less glabrous in the upper parts. The largest leaves are at the base of the plant and are 4–15 cm (1.6–5.9 in) long, about 5 cm (2.0 in) wide and have a petiole. These leaves have up to 15 teeth, or lobes or both on the edges. The leaves decrease in size up the stem, the upper leaves up to 7.5 cm (3.0 in) long, lack a petiole and are deeply toothed

The plant bears up to three "flowers" like those of a typical daisy. Each is a "head" or capitulum 2–6 cm (0.79–2.36 in) wide. Each head has between fifteen and forty white "petals" (ray florets) 10–20 cm (3.9–7.9 in) long surrounding the yellow disc florets. Below the head is an involucre of glabrous green bracts 7–10 mm (0.28–0.39 in) long with brownish edges. Flowering mostly occurs from late spring to early summer.

Leucanthemum vulgare is one of the most widespread weeds in the Anthemideae. It became an introduced species via gardens into natural areas in parts of Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. In some habitats it forms dense colonies displacing native plants and modifying existing communities.

Ox-eye daisy commonly invades lawns, and is difficult to control or eradicate, since a new plant can regenerate from rhizome fragments and is a problem in pastures where beef and dairy cattle graze, as usually they will not eat it, thus enabling it to spread; cows who do eat it produce milk with an undesirable flavor. It has been shown to carry several crop diseases.

This species has been declared an environmental weed in New South Wales and Victoria. In New South Wales it grows from Glen Innes on the Northern Tablelands to Bombala in the far southeast of the state, and there are significant populations in the Kosciuszko National Park where it has invaded subalpine grassland, snowgum (Eucalyptus pauciflora) woodland and wetlands. In Victoria it is a prohibited species and must be eradicated or controlled

 

Aeonium arboreum. Fractal created by Alida. Used Fractal Explorer.

    Aeonium arboreum, the tree aeonium, tree houseleek, or Irish rose,   is a succulent, subtropical subshrub in the flowering plant family Crassulaceae.

It is an invasive weed in places outside its natural distribution, for example as a garden escape throughout temperate southern Australia.          

Aeonium arboreum grows as a less branched subshrub and reaches stature heights of up to 2 metres. The more or less upright or ascending, smooth, not net-like patterned stem axes have a diameter of 1 to 3 centimetres.

Their leaves are in flattened rosettes with diameters of 10 to 25 centimetres at the end of the stem axes together. Young leaves are pressed tightly together. The obovate to oblate lanceolate leaf blade is pointed toward its apex and wedge-shaped at the base. 

+1⁄2 in) wide and 1.5 to 3 millimetres thick. The green, usually purple-colored, glossy leaf surface is almost bare. The leaf margin is set with curved eyelashes.

The conical to ovate inflorescence has a length of 10 to 25 centimetres and a diameter of 10 to 15 centimetres. The inflorescence stem is 130 to 510 mm long. The flowers sit on a 2-to-12-millimetre-long, slightly fluffy flower stem. Its sepals are also slightly fluff-haired with a pointed top and wedge-shaped base that is smooth and shiny green, red or purple. The yellow, narrow oblong to lanceolate, pointed petals are 5 to 7 millimetres long and 1.5 to 2 millimetres wide. The stamens are bare. It bears rosettes of leaves and large pyramidal panicles of bright yellow flowers in the spring.

Papaver rhoeas (common names include common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, or red poppy) is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family, Papaveraceae. This poppy is notable as an agricultural weed (hence the common names including "corn" and "field") and after World War I as a symbol of dead soldiers. Before the advent of herbicides, P. rhoeas sometimes was abundant in agricultural fields. The corn poppy and its cultivars such as the Shirley poppy are widely grown in gardens.

• Cultural usage 

Due to the extent of ground disturbance in warfare during World War I, corn poppies bloomed between the trench lines and no man's lands on the Western front. Poppies are a prominent feature of "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, one of the most frequently quoted English-language poems composed during the First World War. During the 20th century, the wearing of a poppy at and before Remembrance Day (sometimes known informally as Poppy Day) each year became an established custom in English-speaking western countries.^[4] It is also used at some other dates in some countries, such as at appeals for Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand.This poppy appears on a number of postage stamps, coins, banknotes, and national flags, includid:

Two hundred lei (Romanian banknote)

]Canadian twenty-dollar note (2012) and Canadian ten-dollar note (2001)The common or corn poppy was voted the county flower of Essex and Norfolk 

in 2002 following a poll by the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife

China 

In China, P. rhoeas iaccording to folklore, poppies grew out of the ground where Consort Yu fell, and P. rhoeas thus became a symbol of loyalty unto death.
In 2010 P. rhoeas was at the centre of a diplomatic row between China and the United Kingdom; during an official visit to China, the British Prime Minister David Cameron and his entourage rejected the demand from the Chinese government to not wear the Remembrance poppy, which was mistaken as the opium poppy, a plant with enduring connotations of the Opium Wars in China.

 

Bellis perennis. 

Fractal created by Krys

She used Kalles Fractaler

    Bellis may come from bellus, Latin for "pretty", and perennis is Latin for "everlasting". The name "daisy" is considered a corruption of "day's eye" because the whole head closes at night and opens in the morning. Chaucer called it "eye of the day". 

In Medieval times, Bellis perennis or the English Daisy was commonly known as "Mary's Rose". It is also known as bone flower. 

The English Daisy is also considered to be a flower of children and innocence. Daisy is used as a girl's name and as a nickname for girls named Margaret, after the French name for the oxeye daisy, marguerite. 

 Many related plants also share the name "daisy", so to distinguish this species from other daisies it is sometimes qualified as common daisy, lawn daisy or English daisy. Historically, it has also been commonly known as bruisewort and occasionally woundwort (although the common name woundwort is now more closely associated with Stachys). 

Bellis perennis is native to western, central and northern Europe, including remote islands such as the Faroe Islands but widely naturalised in most temperate regions including the Americas and Australasia. It is a perennial herbaceous plant with short creeping rhizomes and rosettes of small rounded or spoon-shaped leaves that are from 2–5 cm long and grow flat to the ground. 

The species habitually colonises lawns, and is difficult to eradicate by mowing – hence the term 'lawn daisy'. It exhibits the phenomenon of heliotropism where the flowers follow the position of the sun in the sky. 2–3 cm in diameter, with white ray florets (often tipped red) and yellow disc florets. Each inflorescence is borne on single leafless stems 2–10 cm, 15 cm tall. The capitulum, or disc of florets, is surrounded by two rows of green bracts known as "phyllaries". The achenes are without pappus.

 

 USES 
Culinare 
This daisy may be used as a potherb. Young leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked, noting that the leaves become increasingly astringent with age. Flower buds and petals can be eaten raw in sandwiches, soups and salads. 
It is also used as a tea and as a vitamin supplement. Herbal medicine Bellis perennis has astringent properties and has been used in herbal medicine. 
Medicine
In ancient Rome, the surgeons who accompanied Roman legions into battle would order their slaves to pick sacks full of daisies in order to extract their juice; bellum, Latin for "war", may be the origin of this plant's scientific name. Bandages were soaked in this juice and would then be used to bind sword and spear cuts. 

lern more from the text about Leuthanceum vulgare

CENTROSEMA PUBESCENS
Fractal created by Jenny
She used Fractal Explorer

common name BUTTERFLY PEA or CENTRO PEA. It is native to Central and South America.
Centrosema improves soil structure by reducing erosion. It reduces weed infestation

Centrosema Pubuscens
Wikipedia

     

Clover. Fractal created by Krystyna. She used Incendia. 

4leaves Clover

Fractal created by Louise

She used Fractal Exolorer

    Trifolium arvense, commonly known as hare's-foot clover, rabbitfoot clover, stone clover or oldfield clover, is a flowering plant in the bean family Fabaceae. This species of clover is native to most of Europe, excluding the Arctic zone, and western Asia, in plain or mid-mountain habitats up to 1,600 metres (5,200 ft) altitude. It grows in dry sandy soils, both acidic and alkaline, soil with dry-mesic conditions and is typically found at the edge of fields, in wastelands, at the side of roads, on sand dunes, and opportunistically in vineyards and orchards when they are not irrigated.

Trifolium arvense are common names for plants of the genus Trifolium (Latin, tres "three" + folium "leaf"), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with highest diversity in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes on mountains in the tropics. They are small annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial herbaceous plants, typically growing up to 30 cm tall. The clover is the color of evergreen. The leaves are trifoliate (rarely quatrefoiled; see four-leaf clover), cinquefoil, or septfoil, with stipules adnate to the leaf-stalk, and heads or dense spikes of small red, purple, white, or yellow flowers; the small, few-seeded pods are enclosed in the calyx. Other closely related genera often called clovers include Melilotus (sweet clover) and Medicago (alfalfa or Calvary clover).

Symbolism

Shamrock, the traditional Irish symbol, which according to legend was coined by Saint Patrick for the Holy Trinity, is commonly associated with clover, although alternatively sometimes with the various species within the genus Oxalis, which are also trifoliate.

Clovers occasionally have four leaflets, instead of the usual three. These four-leaf clovers, like other rarities, are considered lucky. Clovers can also have five, six, or more leaflets, but these are rarer still. The clovers outer leaf structure varies in physical orientation. The record for most leaflets is 56, set on 10 May 2009. This beat the "21-leaf clover", a record set in June 2008 by the same discoverer, who had also held the prior Guinness World Record of 18.

A common idiom is "to be (or to live) in clover", meaning to live a carefree life of ease, comfort, or prosperity.

The cloverleaf interchange is named for the resemblance to the leaflets of a (four-leaf) clover when viewed from the air.