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Can you help me identify the big plant in the center right of the photograph? I planted a lot of different seeds but I don't think this is one of them, I think it's a weed.

Click photograph for full size

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  • I see a lot of plants in your picture. Do you mean the big pointy star in the center, or the red flowery bits, or the spiky green one in the top-right corner, or those little leaves in the bottom-left?
    – ashes999
    Commented Sep 28, 2013 at 16:29

2 Answers 2

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It's almost certainly an Epilobium (willowherb), probably E. ciliatum (common willowherb, northern willowherb, fringed willowherb, etc., etc.). It's one of the most common garden weeds in my own area (Seattle).

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  • I, also, live in the Seattle area, and recognize your identification as correct. However, others reading your answer have no particular reason to believe you since the leaves and habit of the pictured plant resemble many plants in the Lamiaceae family: Basil, Salvia, etc. If, for example, you added that the leaf veins are odd in Epilobium. They don't go to the edges of the leaf, but form loops inside the outer leaf margins (from Wikipedia), people would would be able to correctly distinguish Epilobiums from similar plants. Commented Oct 1, 2013 at 0:31
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Definitely a weed - I must have pulled out thousands of these. If memory serves, they eventually produce small, pale pink flowers, and they prefer to grow where the soil is either uncultivated, or damp, or has poor drainage. I have never yet managed to work out precisely which plant it is though, hopefully someone else might know.

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  • A weed all right and with a flower reminiscent of a salvia.
    – kevinskio
    Commented Sep 23, 2013 at 16:55

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