Weed or wildflower in eye of beholder

Having lived in a town where the dandelion was celebrated with its own festival, I understand that lots of folks can be misdirected about what exactly is a weed and what is a wildflower.

On a recent long weekend I went in search of bluebonnets deep in the heart Texas. As it turns out I was a little late to the party and with dry conditions recently the party apparently wasn’t too big anyway.

I did find some, despite a few differences of opinion.

The first field we saw my wife disputed because she said they weren’t blue. They were more purple than blue but they looked like bluebonnets to me.

We went down the road a short ways and an iconic photo opportunity presented itself — a field of those purple bluebonnets with a flock of white sheep peacefully grazing amongst them.

The couple gazing over the fence at the scene gushed that it was certainly a wonderful scene. I agreed.

The lady quickly added, “those aren’t bluebonnets though.” I asked what they were and she didn’t know but she knew they weren’t bluebonnets. I didn’t say anything but doubted she was right.

As we drove along I was able to identify a few flowers for my wife and she wanted to know how I knew they were wildflowers and not weeds. I didn’t really have an answer.

She pointed out that when the bindweed popped up near the back patio at our house I wanted to get rid of it while she wanted to promote it to climb the trellis screening next to the bistro table.

“Those flowers were pretty, I thought, but you didn’t like them.”

She was right of course but I’d heard my parents and grandparents cuss bindweed so many years the instinct was rather ingrained.

Cacti have only in the last several decades come into wide acceptance as yard and container ornamentals. They sure have great flowers and I even took quite a few photos of cactus blooms on the trip but I can also remember at times working really hard to get rid of cacti in my yard.

It’s the same way with those silly dandelions. I’ve taken some wonderful photos of the pretty yellow flowers. I’ve also captured great images of the delicate dandelion seeds.

Who hasn’t looked at a park full of yellow dandelion flowers and felt good about spring? Heck along with celebrating them in that Colorado town we even took a vow to quit spraying them. Turns out not too many of the people against spraying turned out to dig the darn things out of the park and soon the grass wasn’t too good.

I used to spend a lot of time digging dandelions from my yard. I had a long-handled sticker tool that could launch a weed all the way across the yard.

I believe whether it is a weed or a flower is a very subjective question. My criteria for answering depends on whether I hold a camera or a hoe in my hands.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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