I was hiking yesterday in a large wooded area of trees and weeds in northern Miaoli County, and I noticed that there were beautiful purple flowers everywhere I looked. Here’s a picture that I took:
The flowers grew on long tangled vines and they always had five petals. Also, the leaves on the vine were always five leaves attached together.
I’m curious to know the English name and the Chinese name of these flowers. If anyone knows what kind of flowers these are, please let me know.
Oh, you are awful! But I do like you.
Regarding the Morning Glory (of the vine kind) I learnt something new in the recent Canadian Drug Fiends thread thanks to a post by the Tainan Cowboy. Morning Glory seeds can be used for nefarious purposes - when chewed in large quantities they give a mild LSD high. Devil weed!!
Thanks a lot, Almas John. That’s two mysteries solved. I don’t regard them as weeds. I regard them as wildflowers. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
I also often come across a strange plant that has tiny fern-like leaves which are so sensitive that if you touch any of the leaves, then all of the tiny leaves on that stem close up and stay closed for about 2 or 3 minutes. Here’s a picture of a whole patch of the “sensitive plant”:
And here’s a close up of one of them:
Does this plant have a name, other than just calling it the “sensitive plant”?
one of several species of Mimosa. Perhaps a prostrate mimosa, like Mimosa strigillosa, or the larger Mimosa pudica or Mimosa sensitiva. None native to Taiwan as far as I know.
Another choice is Chamberbitter (Phyllanthus urinaria). The true Mimosas have small purple pom-pom type flowers, the niruri or chamber bitter has greenish white, minute flowers that appear at axils of the leaves, with the seed capsules found under the leaves. The leaves are also sensitive.
The presence of thorns on the previous photo makes me think of a true Mimosa instead.
As for liking weeds, yes, many are pretty but they are bad for the environment - decrease biodiversity greatly, not just by replacing local flora but also affect the fauna.
Urodacus and Almas John, thank you very much for identifying the “sensitive plant”! I’m surprised that they aren’t native to Taiwan because I have seen them all over the west coast of Taiwan, and they’re probably on the east coast, too.
Also there’s a wild plant that looks like wheat. It’s all over the place here in Miaoli County, but it isn’t as common south of Taizhong. I don’t know if it ever has flowers because I always just see a brown stalk with lots of seed pods at the top. Here’s a picture:
Does anyone know the name for this wild plant?
By the way, I have changed the title of this thread from “Taiwan Wildflowers” to “Taiwan Wildflowers and Weeds”.
This wildflower / weed is as ubiquitous in Taiwan as clovers in America. It’s everywhere!
I have always thought this was a daisy, but then I noticed that the petal arrangement is very different from daisies which are in Europe and North America. Look at a picture of a European daisy here (Bellis perennis):
You can see that the European daisy has about 30 or 40 petals, but the “Taiwanese daisy” always has only 5 petals. Also, the leaves are different, too. So now I’m confused about whether or not the “Taiwanese daisy” is really a daisy.
In Taiwan that’s most likely to be Bidens pilosa a plant with several significant Chinese medicine uses (and now shown to be a potential anticancer drug).
In Europe, that would be Bidens alba.
Both have horrible little black seeds with two teeth that cling to clothes, etc.