Which Weeds Are Getting Whacked?

My wife took a look at out neighbor's freshly mowed lawn and asked an excellent question: Are dandelions being selected for-- are they surviving-- because of their ability to withstand lawn-mowing? and judging by the number that survived the mower, they are . . . perhaps the dandelions with the stronger, more flexible and whippier stems are surviving and these traits are becoming more pronounced in suburban dandelions . . . and I'm not sure how you could measure this-- you either need pre-lawnmower dandelion DNA or access to some wild strain of dandelion and then you could do some measurements on the tensile strength of the stems . . . or run an experiment with the wild strain and see if over generations the stems change . . . but maybe there is a more elegant solution: so I will ask Quora and see.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe someone answered you on Quora in a serious manner. I know exactly what you're talking about. I had to remow a few sections last week because of escaping dandilions.

Dave said...

sometimes i think they can move of their own volition . . .

zman said...

Is your point that your wife thinks your neighbor has a crappy lawn?

Anonymous said...

They duck...they know that when the poop hits the fan, we can still eat salad and drink dandelion wine!

Yellow, yellow flower, and
flower of industry,
tough spiky ugly flower,
flower nonetheless,
with the form of the great yellow
Rose in your brain!
This is the flower of the World.

A New Sentence Every Day, Hand Crafted from the Finest Corinthian Leather.