Oxeye Daisies

2017 January 28

These daisies were part of the rich community of invasive plants[1] growing over our septic tank drain field on June 29, 2016

daisies-multiple-plants

They are clearly disturbed-soil colonizers, they’ve largely taken over large expanses of ground.

daisies-field

These are the classic ox-eye daisy. When you say “daisy”, this is what pretty much anyone would picture.

daisy-closeup

I’ve actually had pictures of these flowers before (at least, parts of them), as they are much loved by thrips. For example, here are a couple more thrips:

daisy-thrips

Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) are another invasive plant from Europe[2]. Unlike a lot of accidental imports, this was imported on purpose as a garden plant, and has found the environment to be . . . congenial. Once you have ox-eye daisies, they are going to stick around, because they come up from rhizomes and tillage just spreads them around. They don’t seem to crowd out other plants quite as thoroughly as some of the other invasives do, but they definitely dominate their environment once they get established.

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[1] The daisies are pretty much in a toe-to-toe three-way deathmach for control of our drain field with the tansies and wild peas, with sniping by the white campion and a valiant effort for the home team by the native goldenrod.

[2] While these do have a resemblance to the native fleabanes that I’ve posted previously, when we look at them side-by-side they are obviously quite different, particularly in the width and number of the white ray petals:

Daisy:
daisy-closeup

Daisy Fleabane:
daisy-fleabane-single-blossom

Hyssop-Leaved Fleabane:
fleabane-single-blossom-facing

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