Lady's Thumbs

     When driving through farmland in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in October, one will see scattered, little patches of hot-pink in the green vegetation along the country roads.  That pink is the many small flowers of lady's thumb, a kind of smartweed plant.  Lady's thumb grows on rural roadsides and the edges of fields in much of the eastern United States.  This annual species of smartweed is originally from Europe where it adapted to disturbed areas, habitats it also grows in here in America.  Its habitats are sunny or partly so, wet or drier, with fertile soil, all of which are in Lancaster County.  And the mowing of roadside vegetation makes the flowers of this plant more visible against green grasses and other shortened plants.  This type of smartweed is called lady's thumb because each elongated leaf has a dull-purple smudge on it, like a finger print. 
     Lady's thumbs bloom from June to well into October, but it's during the latter month they are most abundant, and visible.  This plant species grows to be 6 to 24 inches tall, but may be shorter because of mowing vegetation along the roadsides. 
     Lady's thumbs produce elongated clusters of pink, tight blossoms on the tops of flower stems.  Those flowers are also ovate, grain-like and one-eighth of an inch long,  Only small bees, flies and wasps force their ways into the blooms to sip nectar, pollinating those blooms in the process.
     After being fertilized by those small insects, each flower head grows a tiny, shiny-black seed that is ovoid and flat.  Those seeds are eaten by field mice, ducks, geese and a variety of small seed-eating birds during the succeeding winter.
    The larvae of certain moths and butterflies and Japanese beetles and other beetles eat the foliage of this type of smartweed.                 
     Lady's thumbs form attractive colonies of pink flowers that are most noticeable along rural roadsides in October, particularly where the vegetation has been mowed, exposing the pink blossoms to view.  One can easily see those patches of lovely, pink flowers when driving along country roads.  Get out this October, or succeeding ones, to experience Lady's thumb blooms.