This article is about plants specifically called weeds.

For the drug commonly called "weed",

see cannabis (drug). For other uses, see weed (disambiguation).
A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, "a plant in the wrong place".
Examples commonly are plants unwanted in human-controlled settings, such as farm
fields, gardens, lawns, and parks. Taxonomically, the term "weed" has no botanical significance,
because a plant that is a weed in one context is not a weed when growing in a situation where it is in
fact wanted, and where one species of plant is a valuable crop plant, another species in the same
genus might be a serious weed, such as a wild bramble growing among cultivated loganberries. In
the same way, volunteer crops (plants) are regarded as weeds in a subsequent crop. Many plants
that people widely regard as weeds also are intentionally grown in gardens and other cultivated
settings, in which case they are sometimes called beneficial weeds. The term weed also is applied to
any plant that grows or reproduces aggressively, or is invasive outside its native habitat.[1] More
broadly "weed" occasionally is applied pejoratively to species outside the plant kingdom, species that
can survive in diverse environments and reproduce quickly; in this sense it has even been applied
to humans.[2]
Weed control is important in agriculture. Methods include hand cultivation with hoes, powered
cultivation with cultivators, smothering with mulch or soil solarization, lethal wilting with high
heat, burning, or chemical attack with herbicides.

Contents

 1Ecological significance
o 1.1Competition with cultivated and endemic plants
o 1.2Benefits of weed species
 2Dispersal
 3Weeds as adaptable species
 4Plants often considered to be weeds
 5Weed control
 6History
 7See also
 8References
 9External links

Ecological significance

A dandelion is a common plant all over the world, especially in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It is a well-
known example of a plant that is considered a weed in some contexts (such as lawns) but not a weed in others
(such as when it is used as a vegetable or herbal medicine).
Certain classes of weeds share adaptations to ruderal environments. That is to say: disturbed
environments where soil or natural vegetative cover has been damaged or frequently gets damaged,
disturbances that give the weeds advantages over desirable crops, pastures, or ornamental plants.
The nature of the habitat and its disturbances will affect or even determine which types of weed
communities become dominant.[3]
Examples of such ruderal or pioneer species include plants that are adapted to naturally occurring
disturbed environments such as dunes and other windswept areas with shifting soils, alluvial flood
plains, river banks and deltas, and areas that are burned repeatedly.[4] Since human agricultural
practices often mimic these natural environments where weedy species have evolved, some weeds
are effectively preadapted to grow and proliferate in human-disturbed areas such as agricultural
fields, lawns, roadsides, and construction sites. The weedy nature of these species often gives them
an advantage over more desirable crop species because they often grow quickly
and reproduce quickly, they commonly have seeds that persist in the soil seed bank for many years,
or they may have short lifespans with multiple generations in the same growing season. In contrast,
perennial weeds often have underground stems that spread under the soil surface or, like ground ivy
(Glechoma hederacea), have creeping stems that root and spread out over the ground.[5]
Some plants become dominant when introduced into new environments because the animals in their
original environment, that compete with them or feed on them are absent; in what is sometimes
called the “natural enemies hypothesis”, plants freed from these specialist consumers may become
dominant. An example is Klamath weed, that threatened millions of hectares of prime grain and
grazing land in North America after it was accidentally introduced, but was reduced to a rare
roadside weed within several years after some of its natural enemies were imported during World
War II.[6] In locations where predation and mutually competitive relationships are absent, weeds have
increased resources available for growth and reproduction. The weediness of some species that are
introduced into new environments may be caused by their production of allelopathic chemicals which
indigenous plants are not yet adapted to, a scenario sometimes called the "novel weapons
hypothesis". These chemicals may limit the growth of established plants or the germination and
growth of seeds and seedlings.[7][8]
Another of the ways in which the ecological role of a plant can make it a weed even if it is in itself
inoffensive, is if it harbours a pest that is dependent on it for survival; for example, Berberis species
are intermediate hosts for stem rust fungi, so that they promote serious damage to wheat crops
when growing near the fields.

Competition with cultivated and endemic plants

Australia, 1907: Cattlemen survey 700 carcasses of cattle that were killed overnight by a poisonous plant [9]

A number of native or non-native plants are unwanted in a specific location for a number of
reasons.[10] An important one is functional: they interfere with food and fiber production in agriculture,
wherein they must be controlled in order to prevent lost or diminished crop yields. Other important
reasons are that they interfere with other cosmetic, decorative, or recreational goals, such as
in lawns, landscape architecture, playing fields, and golf courses. Similarly, they can be of concern
for environmental reasons whereby introduced species out-compete for resources or space with
desired endemic plants.
For all these reasons, horticultural (both functional and cosmetic) and environmental, weeds
interfere by:

 competing with the desired plants for the resources that a plant typically needs, namely, direct
sunlight, soil nutrients, water, and (to a lesser extent) space for growth;
 providing hosts and vectors for plant pathogens, giving them greater opportunity to infect and
degrade the quality of the desired plants;
 providing food or shelter for animal pests such as seed-eating birds and Tephritid fruit flies that
otherwise could hardly survive seasonal shortages;[11]
 offering irritation to the skin or digestive tracts of people or animals, either physical irritation
via thorns, prickles, or burs, or chemical irritation via natural poisons or irritants in the weed (for
example, the poisons found in Nerium species);[12]
 causing root damage to engineering works such as drains, road surfaces, and
foundations,[13] blocking streams and rivulets.[14]
In weed ecology some authorities speak of the relationship between "the three Ps": plant, place,
perception. These have been very variously defined, but the weed traits listed by H.G. Baker are
widely cited.[15][16]

Sonnet 69, 1609[17]

Weeds have long been a concern, perhaps as long as humans have cultivated plants. They are
mentioned in various historic texts, such as the Shakespearean Sonnet 69:
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: / But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, / The soil
is this, that thou dost common grow.[17]
and the Bible:[1]
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It
will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your
brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground.[18]

Benefits of weed species

See also: companion plant, beneficial weed, List of beneficial weeds, and list of edible flowers
"What would the world be, once bereft,

of wet and wildness? Let them be left.

O let them be left; wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem Inversnaid

While the term "weed" generally has a negative connotation, many plants known as weeds can have
beneficial properties. A number of weeds, such as the dandelion (Taraxacum) and lamb's quarter,
are edible, and their leaves or roots may be used for food or herbal medicine. Burdock is common
over much of the world, and is sometimes used to make soup and medicine in East Asia.[19] Some
weeds attract beneficial insects, which in turn can protect crops from harmful pests. Weeds can also
prevent pest insects from finding a crop, because their presence disrupts the incidence of positive
cues which pests use to locate their food. Weeds may also act as a "living mulch", providing ground
cover that reduces moisture loss and prevents erosion. Weeds may also improve soil fertility;
dandelions, for example, bring up nutrients like calcium and nitrogen from deep in the soil with their
tap root, and clover hosts nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, fertilizing the soil directly. The
dandelion is also one of several species which break up hardpan in overly cultivated fields, helping
crops grow deeper root systems. Some garden flowers originated as weeds in cultivated fields and
have been selectively bred for their garden-worthy flowers or foliage. An example of a crop weed
that is grown in gardens is the corncockle, (Agrostemma githago), which was a common weed in
European wheat fields, but is now sometimes grown as a garden plant.[20]

Dispersal
Many weed species have moved out of their natural geographic ranges and spread around the world
in tandem with human migrations and commerce. Weed seeds are often collected and transported
with crops after the harvesting of grains, so humans are a vector of transport as well as a producer
of the disturbed environments to which weed species are well adapted, resulting in many weeds
having a close association with human activities.[21][22]
Some weed species have been classified as noxious weeds by government authorities because, if
left unchecked, they often compete with native or crop plants or cause harm to livestock.[23] They are
often foreign species accidentally or imprudently imported into a region where there are few natural
controls to limit their population and spread.[24]

Weeds as adaptable species

"We've got to be one of the most bomb-proof species on the planet."
paleontologist David Jablonsky[2]

An alternate definition often used by biologists is any species, not just plants, that can quickly adapt
to any environment.[2] Some traits of weedy species are the ability to reproduce quickly, disperse
widely, live in a variety of habitats, establish a population in strange places, succeed in disturbed
ecosystems and resist eradication once established. Such species often do well in human-
dominated environments as other species are not able to adapt. Common examples include
the common pigeon, brown rat and the raccoon. Other weedy species have been able to expand
their range without actually living in human environments, as human activity has damaged the
ecosystems of other species. These include the coyote, the white-tailed deer and the brown headed
cowbird.[2]
In response to the idea that humans may face extinction due to environmental degradation,
paleontologist David Jablonsky counters by arguing that humans are a weed species. Like other
weedy species, humans are widely dispersed in a wide variety of environments, and are highly
unlikely to go extinct no matter how much damage the environment faces.[2]