The Lowly Bitterweed

 

If you are a city gal, you probably won't be interested in this:

I grew up with bitterweeds.  They were around our barn and even in the yard.  Maybe you aren't familiar with this plant, so I'll give a brief description of it.  The bitterweed is a low growing plant, 6-20 inches tall, with bright yellow flowers and a very strong oder.  They are aggressive in their growth in overgrazed pastures, along roadsides, and waste areas.  Where tame grasses grow thicker the weed is usually not a problem.

The bitter weed contains a toxic substance to livestock, especially horses and mules.  Most animals won't eat it because of the foul, bitter taste.  Allowing animals to graze bitterweed, even in small quantities, can cause a cow's milk to taste bitter.  And maybe that was my first encounter with the lowly bitterweed.  Whenever the hot sun dried up the grass, the weed thrived, and Mama's milk cow ate it, making our milk and butter taste bad.

As two little children playing in the barn, my cousin and I found a perfect use for those yellow blooms.  With the sand he brought to me, I made mud cakes and pies in little tin pans, and decorated them with the flowers.  But that wasn't the only use we found for the weed.

During the day, Mama's hens roamed the yard where we played and it was nothing uncommon for us to step barefooted in a hen's droppings and have the wet stuff ooze between our toes.  There was no hose with a nozzle, in those days, connected to an outside faucet for us to wash them, so we found a bitterweed, put the stem between our toes, and pulled up our foot, letting the green foliage swipe off the mess.  It might have taken more than one swipe, but hey, it worked!

I never see a bitterweed without remembering those days, and if this makes me a redneck hillbilly, then I wear the color and the name with pride.

Charlotte