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Latin name: Epilobium angustifolium
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Family: Onagraceae - Evening
Primrose Family
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Common name: Fireweed
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Life cycle: perennial, spreading
by seed and rhizomes. Seed are wind blown long distances with a
cottony pappus.
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Habit: Fireweed grows upright
4 to 6 feet tall.
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Foliage: Foliage is alternately
arranged, linear, and has a somewhat wavey margin.
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Flower: Pink, showy, occurring
in clusters on a terminal raceme.
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Seed: Fireweed seed are covered
by a white-brown cotton-like tuft of hairs. This enables the seed
to be carried long distances by wind.
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Roots: Fireweed has a fibrous
root system. Fireweed can spread by rhizomes, which are the primary
method of reproduction.
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Notes: Fireweed gets its
name from the fact that it is often the first plant to start growing
in forests after fires burn back all other vegetation. Fireweed
was one of the first and the most abundant colonizers of Mt. Saint Helens
after it erupted. It is problematic in nurseries because these
sites often mimic conditions after forest fires. Most other crop
production systems are spaced such that plant canopies grow together
in several weeks; however, in nursery production, plants are spaced so
far apart that it may take at least a year, if not several, for canopies
to grow together. So like a recently burned forest, there is little
plant competition in a nursery system, and fireweed thrives.
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