Our world is green, with many kinds of plants. All plants are in some way useful and beneficial. But some plants are undesirable in situations created by man to serve his particular needs. This page includes picture to help you identify weeds.

These plants are called "weeds," and are most simply defined as "plants out of place." This definition may be expanded to include any plant that:

• Presents difficulty in cultivating desirable plants.
• Has a potential for decreasing the value of plant and animal products.
• Causes losses through increased cultivation or harvesting costs.
• Presents a hazard of poisoning man or animals.
• Interferes with the enjoyment of outdoor recreation.
• destroys the aesthetic value of turf and other ornamental plantings.

Weeds are known by everyone, but are not necessarily recognized. Effective selective weed control efforts depend upon the ability to recognize (identify) plants, thereby permitting an intelligent choice of cultural practices and herbicide use.

This webpage should aid in recognizing 120 of the more common weeds in the Southern United States (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia). Please realize that there are more than 300 common names for these same weeds.

Priorities were assigned for use on the basis of most common occurrence and/or difficulty of control. We have attempted also to represent all the southern states with weeds peculiar to the widely varying environments. Nevertheless, there are at least 180 weeds of lesser importance which are not shown, and which present problems over large or local areas.

Common names of weeds conform to the Weed Science Society of America Terminology Committee report.

Botanical names conform first to the WSSA Terminology report, or alternatively to Smalls's "Manual of Southeastern Flora," or to Gray's "Manual of Botany."

Click the picture for high resolution.

More coming soon...................