Steve Dewey, Utah State University, Bugwood.org
That's Scotch Broom. Other names include Broomtops, Common Broom, English Broom and Irish Broom. I guess it just depends on who you want to blame. The Latin name is Cytisus Scoparius. Apparently, Wretchedus Evilus Plantus was taken. As you might have surmised, I don't care for the plant. That's because I'm allergic. Those little yellow flowers pop out and I'm taking antihistamine for months. I can't avoid the plant. I geocache and it is everywhere.
The thing is, Scotch Broom is not supposed to be here. Although it has invaded most of the Eastern and Western portions of the U.S., it isn't native to North America. As you can probably tell from the many different names it goes by, it's native to Europe and was brought over here and introduced as an ornamental in the 1800s. Like starlings, it was brought over to make the New World seem more like the Old. Like the starlings, it took over. Now it's considered a noxious weed. I, and my many fellow allergy sufferers, could have told them that.
Scotch Broom isn't the only ornamental to go rogue though. On Earth Day my fellow geocachers held an event where they worked with the parks department to tear out ivy that was smothering trees. I'm recovering from a stress fracture so my job was ferrying people from the parking lot to the work site, but my friends worked themselves ragged trying to free trees from the ivy. Ivy isn't native to the area by any means. It's all there because it escaped from someone's yard.
When we're gardening, let's be careful out there.
Cougar Mountain CITO 2012
Wikipedia Scotch Broom
English Ivy is an invasive species in the Pacific Northwest
I don't know if this happens out there, but apparently around here, there are stands of wild bamboo that occasionally must be cleared. Another not native plant that just loves to grow here - and it grows FAST.
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