Email from Biologist Phil Ashley on previously unidentified plant:

Subject: Plant Ident. Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:58:00 -0700
From: pashley@calpoly.edu
Organization: Bio Sci Dept Cal Poly
To: smarx@calpoly.edu

Steven:

It is to the book's left. It's hard to tell which plant it is at this early vegetative stage and not knowing where you took the picture. But I'll assume it was in western SLO Co. somewhere. It looks like Bristly Ox-tongue (Picris echioides), an introduced herb in the sunflower (composite) family. If not P. echioides, it could be several other things also likely in the sunflower family. Without a sunflower family specialist, we'd need flowers to be positive.

Anyway, if my guess is right about it being P. e., I've refrained from calling it a weed, as many other humans do, because it has good forage value for a wide variety of wildlife especially for birds and mammals. I live 3 blocks from the edge of town off Johnson Ave. adjacent to Sydney Creek. On my mostly sloped 1/3 acre lot with many cultivated native plants, I've found urban wildlife in such situations also relish the human termed "weedy" plants, if they are allowed to grow. Despite orders by the City every year to whack the "weeds" (which I do to avoid the fines), I still manage to leave some patches of "weeds" for wildlife. Early this Saturday morning I watched a doe and her 2 fawns foraging with relish on the approximately 10' x 10' patch of Bristly Ox-tongue that I refrained from whacking down! Momma doe and her young especially liked munching the yellow heads of flowers that this so-called weed produces this time of year. In fact, there wasn't a head of flowers left of the several dozen after their breakfast. Though the fawns (still striped and spotted) are on mother's milk, they are starting to forage heavily too.

In summary-- P. e. is just my experienced guess for the reasons given. Hope you are having a good summer. Later/sooner, wscPhil