Our mys­tery plant.

Well, this blog entry was orig­i­nally to share details, ben­e­fits, and ease con­cerns about Chick­weed (Stel­laria media); a weedy plant I briefly researched a few years ago because the dogs like to nib­ble on var­i­ous bits of green­ery in the back­yard, this one in par­tic­u­lar. Our plant looked like it matched Chick­weed pho­tos, ours just had brighter yel­low flow­ers. (Must be a Texas thing, right?!) How­ever, bet­ter research shows I misiden­ti­fied. Our plant is actu­ally called Horse­herb or Strag­gler Daisy (Calyp­to­car­pus vialis). Misiden­ti­fy­ing is an easy mis­take, I’m assured by the blog Texas Herbs. By either name, our dogs seek it out and graze away, mak­ing the yard look as if an odd herd of minia­ture cat­tle invaded the yard. (Albeit squirrel-chasing cattle!)

Vivian, munch­ing on Strag­gler Daisy.

The now-properly-identified Horseherb/Straggler Daisy makes its appear­ance in our yard every spring and late fall. It likes mod­er­ate tem­per­a­tures and damp soil. Some­thing we’ve had a bit of lately, so we are see­ing an early, early appear­ance this month.

Took notice of this plant when the dogs were nib­bling on it along with blades of grass. Con­cerned whether it was poi­so­nous, I was orig­i­nally relived to find that not only is Chick­weed not poi­so­nous, it is a plant actu­ally sought out by human for­agers and has reported health ben­e­fits. How­ever, now that I know our plant is Horseherb/Straggler Daisy, not find­ing much sup­port for its edi­bil­ity. A bit con­cern­ing, as the dogs love to nib­ble on it and I tested it myself the other day to check the taste. Funny thing, it tastes as Chick­weed is described, a mild baby corn or corn silk taste. Nei­ther I, nor the dogs, seem to be ill after con­sump­tion. They have been nib­bling on it for a few years with no appar­ent ill effects…though I wouldn’t rec­om­mend mak­ing a salad out of it based on this very unsci­en­tific study; cer­tainly with­out proper tox­i­col­ogy testing.

Because your dogs may like nib­bling on green­ery, too, and it’s easy to misiden­tify this plant (plead­ing guilty!), here’s what you need to know about each one.

Horseherb/Straggler Daisy (Calyp­to­car­pus vialis)
Horseherb/Straggler Daisy is both a val­ued US native ground­cover plant and a reviled lawn weed, depend­ing on its loca­tion. It attracts but­ter­flies with it’s bright yel­low flow­ers. Grows in south­ern US States.

An author­i­ta­tive source of Texas plant info is the Lady Bird John­son Wild­flower Center. The Wild­flower Center’s, Ask Mr. Smarty Plants fea­ture gives a response to the ques­tion of tox­i­c­ity. The fol­low­ing is excerpted from Ask Mr. Smarty Plants:

QUESTION:
Hello, I find horse-herb every­where. Is it edi­ble, too? Thanks!

ANSWER:
Mr. Smarty Plants hasn’t been able to find any infor­ma­tion about the pos­si­ble edi­bil­ity of Calyp­to­car­pus vialis (strag­gler daisy). None of the ref­er­ence books listed below under “Bib­li­og­ra­phy” have listed it.

How­ever, we also haven’t found it listed on any of our favorite toxic plant data­bases:
Texas Toxic Plant Data­base
Poi­so­nous Plants of North Car­olina
Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Poi­so­nous Plants Infor­ma­tional Data­base
Cana­dian Poi­so­nous Plants Infor­ma­tion System

The City of Austin’s Native and Adapted Land­scape Plants says that is “some­what deer resis­tant”, which might indi­cate that it isn’t very tasty — at least not to deer. You prob­a­bly wouldn’t get vio­lently ill if you tried some (if it were deadly poi­so­nous, I feel sure it would appear in at least one of those toxic data­bases), but you could pos­si­bly have some unpleas­ant reac­tion to it.

My advice is: Don’t try it. Since it is so very com­mon, if it were really deli­cious, some­one would have talked about it by now.”

Of course read the above advice after my taste test! More on this plant from the Wild­flower Cen­ter: Calyp­to­car­pus vialis Less.

Curi­ous and still want more Horseherb/Straggler Daisy info? Try these other sources:

• City of Austin, Land­scape Plants – Horse­herb
• Great Stems.com – Love It or Leave It: Horseherb
• The Grackle – plants: Strag­gler Daisy
• Where Plants Rule – Strag­gler Daisy
• USDA Nat­ural Resources Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice – Calyp­to­car­pus vialis Less. strag­gler daisy

Chick­weed (Stel­laria media)
This plant has a lot going for it! It’s safe to eat and used in var­i­ous herbal reme­dies. It gets its name from its appeal to chick­ens and is even planted as a feed source for chick­ens and canaries. There are sev­eral types of chick­weed and it grows all over North Amer­ica. The flow­ers on this plant are white to light yellow.

For Chick­weed info, try these links:

• Aggie Hor­ti­cul­ture – Cen­tral Texas Gar­den Weeds
• Vir­ginia Tech Weed Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Guide – Com­mon Chickweed
• USDA Nat­ural Resources Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice – Stel­laria media (L.) Vill. com­mon chickweed
• Wild Food! Wild­man Steve Brill – Chick­weed Stel­laria Species

See “Wild­man” Steve Brill explain Chick­weed health ben­e­fits in this Fox News video:

While, I’m relived to know Horseherb/Straggler Daisy is not on a list of toxic plants and Chick­weed is fine to eat, maybe I’ll just put “salad greens for dogs” on the next gro­cery list!