An odd plant !

[haggis]

I am hoping that the wisdom of members here can help! While steering this morning there was a canal side field which was all grass apart from a strip about 6 yards wide. That strip contained plants which I couldn't identify. The bare stalks were 2-3 feet high and at the top there was a brown thing which looked like an upside down half coconut. The field was perhaps a quarter of a mile long with these odd plants all the way along. What on earth were they ,?

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, haggis said:

I am hoping that the wisdom of members here can help! While steering this morning there was a canal side field which was all grass apart from a strip about 6 yards wide. That strip contained plants which I couldn't identify. The bare stalks were 2-3 feet high and at the top there was a brown thing which looked like an upside down half coconut. The field was perhaps a quarter of a mile long with these odd plants all the way along. What on earth were they ,?

 

Without a pic. it's difficult.

 

Some sort of large mushroom/fungi perhaps??

[Annie cariad]

Dried out sunflowers 

[Mike Tee]

That almost sounds like dried sunflowers

 

beaten by 30 seconds!

Edited January 1 by Mike Tee

[haggis]

16 minutes ago, MJG said:

 

Without a pic. it's difficult.

 

Some sort of large mushroom/fungi perhaps??

 

Of course! Dead sunflowers! Thank you 

Edited January 1 by haggis

[Alan de Enfield]

24 minutes ago, haggis said:

I am hoping that the wisdom of members here can help! While steering this morning there was a canal side field which was all grass apart from a strip about 6 yards wide. That strip contained plants which I couldn't identify. The bare stalks were 2-3 feet high and at the top there was a brown thing which looked like an upside down half coconut. The field was perhaps a quarter of a mile long with these odd plants all the way along. What on earth were they ,?

 

It sounds very much like a 'cover strip' used alongside field edges to provide pheasants with 'cover' (protection) and food from the seeds.

When shooting days happen, the beaters will walk thru the cover strip 'flushing' the birds towards the guns.

[Gardner]

Globe artichokes I think. Cover crop for pheasants.

[Hudds Lad]

I use an app on me iPhone called PictureThis (when you open the app it'll try to get you to subscribe, but there's a hard to see "Cancel" at top right of screen which allows use for free but doesn't save your searches after an amount of time). You take a snap of the plant and it identifies it with pretty near-perfect results. I've even used this from the tiller with the camera zoomed in as far as it'll go to snap stuff on the offside and towpath. Very useful and way quicker than leafing through the old Collins Gem  

[Victor Vectis]

Triffids?

[Rob-M]

27 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

I use an app on me iPhone called PictureThis (when you open the app it'll try to get you to subscribe, but there's a hard to see "Cancel" at top right of screen which allows use for free but doesn't save your searches after an amount of time). You take a snap of the plant and it identifies it with pretty near-perfect results. I've even used this from the tiller with the camera zoomed in as far as it'll go to snap stuff on the offside and towpath. Very useful and way quicker than leafing through the old Collins Gem  

You can use Google Lens to do image searches of anything from a phone camera.

[MtB]

4 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

I use an app on me iPhone called PictureThis (when you open the app it'll try to get you to subscribe, but there's a hard to see "Cancel" at top right of screen which allows use for free but doesn't save your searches after an amount of time). You take a snap of the plant and it identifies it with pretty near-perfect results. I've even used this from the tiller with the camera zoomed in as far as it'll go to snap stuff on the offside and towpath. Very useful and way quicker than leafing through the old Collins Gem  

 

I have PlantNet installed on my phone. 

 

Seems able to identify almost anything.

 

https://plantnet.org/en/

[David Mack]

9 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I have PlantNet installed on my phone. 

 

Seems able to identify almost anything.

 

https://plantnet.org/en/

I use LeafSnap which sounds similar.

https://leafsnap.app/

[MtB]

Just now, David Mack said:

I use LeafSnap which sounds similar.

https://leafsnap.app/

 

I've tried lots of plant identification apps over the years but none work anything like as reliably as PlantNet. Pretty sure I've not tried Leafsnap though. Thanks!

 

 

[haggis]

Gosh! I didn't know there were so many apps for identifying plants. Not as much fun as posting here though 😀

[MtB]

1 minute ago, haggis said:

Gosh! I didn't know there were so many apps for identifying plants. Not as much fun as posting here though 😀

 

Especially with no photos! 

 

 

[haggis]

36 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Especially with no photos! 

 

 

But I did describe them quite well  😀

[Sailbadthesinner]

Which way up is an upside down half coconut?

Top half or bottom half?

I couldn't quite work it out in my head. 

Maybe it's the wine.

Cheese!

 

[MtB]

25 minutes ago, Sailbadthesinner said:

Which way up is an upside down half coconut?

Top half or bottom half?

I couldn't quite work it out in my head. 

Maybe it's the wine.

Cheese!

 

 

Cheese!

 

My 'go to' salutation too!

 

(I have your same questions too. Which way up is upside down?)

 

Any app that can identify from a written description must be artificially intelligament, I reckon...