A stroll around my neighbourhood, led me to some very useful plants and a poisonous one, today…
Firstly, Annual Nettle (Urticaria urens). Full of nutrients, rather like it’s better known perennial sister but with less ferocious stings. If you are used to seeing Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) around town you may notice that this annual has more toothed leaf edges.
Next is a handsome, deep rooted Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis agg.)
Then a strong, protective Ivy plant (Hedera helix) in full autumn insect feeding bloom.
Here is a lively patch of vitamin packed Chickweed (Stellaria media) making three most of a protective playground fence.
Here’s a tiny Hollyhock seedling, growing in a pavement crack.
I also liked the look of this decorative (and edible) Pansy (Viola tricolor).
And a lovely nutritious Mallow growing against the building where I live.
Lastly a striking plant which I’m quite sure is a poisonous nightshade. This one seems to be used as a decorative addition to pavement garden. I will try to find it’s name but think it is sometimes called Love Apple, Nicandra spp.
Urban Herbology 
I think that the nettle we have on the property is the annual kind. It’s flowering at the moment and I figure it wouldn’t be bad to let it seed where it is and use it when it sprouts up. We have dandelions here too (I would imaging that Antartica has them as well!) and our Java finches eat as many of them as I can shove into their cage. I used to drink dandelion coffee but it got too expensive so I might have to collect some roots and give it a go myself. We have Solanum sodomaeum here and my nana used to collect the fruit and eat them. She called them kangaroo apples and she lived to 96 so I dare say they didn’t do her any harm. Lots of wonderful “weeds” in this post. I think I just caught up with the posts, now I can stop typing 🙂 Have a great Sunday 🙂
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Thanks for your continued comments, I love reading them and learn from them 🙂 Do you think the nightshade I showed on the post is the one you mention? I haven’t had time to ready pin down the name.
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