ruderal

[prettygoodword]

ruderal (ROO-der-uhl) - adj., (of a plant) growing in waste places or disturbed soil.


Also, as a noun, such a plant. These are the first volunteers to grow after a fire, landslide, cultivation, or roadbuilding has disrupted the soil or existing vegitation. This makes them invasive species more or less by definition. Coined around 1840 from Scientific Latin rūderālis, from Latin rūdus, rubble/broken stone.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea! Lambs’ quarters (Chenopidium berlandieri); take care not to confuse it with spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata))! (Urban foraging is in large part a race against the construction crew.)

(I suppose there are people into high-risk recreational botany who gather jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), a similar opportunist. Note that Indigenous spirit-workers undergo lengthy training in its use, taking into account all sorts of variables as the age and location of the plant, the time of day it was harvested, the soil quality, what else is growing in the vicinity, and the age, weight, and general health of the patient; there’s a whole terroir of dope, and having grokked Castaneda does not constitute a native pharmacological degree.)

[prettygoodword]

Yeah, don't touch the datura unless you really know what you're doing.

Purslane's common enough here, we don't need to find the disrupted soil. We've some out back ...

[lokifan]

Ah, so like poppies? Very seasonally appropriate in the UK since we just had Remembrance Day.

[prettygoodword]

Many poppies are, indeed, ruderal.