Lawn Weeds & Flower Identification

Crabgrass, the dandelion, plantain, white clover and wood sorrel are likely to invade your lawn at any time, and the sensitive plant infests tropical landscapes. They are easy to identify.

Crabgrass has thick stems that radiate outward along the ground from the place where the plant emerges from the soil; wide leaves are sparsely distributed along the length of the stem and more densely at its end. The chaffy flowers grow in clusters at the end of long upright stems; the clusters look like slender fingers that radiate from a point.

The dandelion has a sturdy taproot (a root that looks like a carrot) and a whorl of deeply-toothed basal leaves (leaves that grow next to the ground at the bottom of the plant). It has only one long bare, hollow flower stalk, and its yellow flower is a composite head (many little flowers growing compactly on the end of the stem and forming what looks like a single flower).

Plantain is a low-growing herb consisting of ovate (egg-shaped) leaves on short stems that spring from the point where the plant emerges from the soil. The inflorescence (flower cluster) is a short spike, an upright stem with drab little flowers and later seeds that hug the upper half of the stem all around its circumference.

White clover has a short stems with a trifoliate leaf (three leaflets) at the end in an arrangement that looks something like the clubs in a deck of cards. Its flower looks like a jagged white ball on a short stem.

Like clover, yellow wood sorrel has trifoliate leaves; but the three leaflets are cordate (heart-shaped) instead of round. The radially symmetrical flower has five yellow petals.

The sensitive plant, a weed on tropical lawns, has a thorny stem and a leaf with very small leaflets that look like fine-toothed combs and flowers that look like fuzzy pink balls. The leaflets fold up when touched so they are hard to see.