[Granville-Hough] 19 Jan 2009 - Bitterweeds

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

Bitterweeds.  One of the most obnoxious pests we had in the 1930 decade
was the bitterweed, probably some version of the sunflower plant.  It
got into our pastures and took over, crowding out the grass.  Then the
cattle were forced to eat it to get enough food.  It caused the milk to
taste bitter, and that milk was hard to drink.  We found we could make
the bitter milk into buttermilk and butter, and we hardly noticed the
bitterness.  So we made fresh buttermilk each day and only used fresh
milk for cooking.
    Bitterweed could be controlled by disking the land, fertilizing,
then planting deep-rooted grasses or lespedeza.  It could not compete
with these plants.  When people got enough oil money or war-time
earnings to do that, the bitterweed problem disappeared.
    One of the annual problems we had with bitterweed was on our Mize
Grade School campus.  In August, just before school started, someone
would be hired to mow the campus and remove the bitterweed clippings,
which they did.  I suppose they threw the clippings into the creek which
flowed by the campus.  But what they left was the little stalk stumps
about one inch high and 1/8 inch in diameter, about the same size as a
sharp upright nail.  This would have been OK if everyone had worn shoes
or even had shoes, which was not the case.  We started school in August
before anyone had sold any cotton with which they could buy shoes.  So,
many children were disabled the first day or in the first week when they
tried to play bare-footed on the campus of bitterweed stalks.  So I have
bitter memories about bitterweeds.  I never heard them called
sneezeweed, but it could be that they were a source of pollen which
affected those with asthma.

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Granville, I have a few books about plants.  The plant we knew as
bitterweed has the genus Helenium and
is known -- depending  on your plant authority -- as Helenium amarum and
  various other names under that genus.

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The  writers don't seem to know one from the other.  I remember the 
bitter milk when our cows got into
a bitterweed patch.  And if you pulled them up you got a bitter coating 
on your fingers.

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There used to be another common weed that inhabited  vacant lots and
such, and it was also called bitter weed  but it was obvious that it
wasn't much kin, if any, to the above. It had a thick foliage and was
rather  tall growing -- reaching heights up to six or eight feet. It was
an ideal weed with which to make your "play" horse.  You cut or pulled
out this weed up and on the bottom tied a piece of string, then leaving
five or ten inches at the tip, you stripped off the rest of the branchlets.
   This was your "play" horse. You put it between your legs and galloped
off. When you stopped to occupy yourself with other affairs,  you tied
your steed to a fence or somewhere nearby to rest, then when you were
through  with the other affairs you got your steed and galloped off.
When the weed wore out, you  just got another one.

Harold

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GWH: I do know something about this weed.  It appeared in Southern
Mississippi after a hurricane-like storm about 1915.  It was called the
"Storm Weed," by most people who had seen it show up after the storm.
Its original home may have been in South or Central America, Cuba, or
anywhere else to the South.