I noticed some lavender wildflowers on the picnic grounds when I attended a reunion in my dad's northern Wisconsin hometown in 1995.  "I wonder if Grandma picked these flowers," I thought. My next thought was, "I can take a few seeds and see if I can get them grow in my yard!" I was quite proud of myself, especially since the idea came to me in time to gather some of flowers rather than after we'd already headed back home to Nevada.

I carefully protected the stems throughout the rest of our trip, and by the time we got home some of the flowers had gone to seed. I scattered them on the ground, and unlike other times I've tried to get flowers to grow by doing that, these seeds sprouted and the plants grew and flowered. For the next few years, I enjoyed my "Wisconsin wildflowers" and thought of my ancestors every time I saw them.

Then I came across them in a book, and they weren't Wisconsin wildflowers after all. They were an invasive weed from Eurasia named spotted knapweed. I pulled them all out.

But it's not that easy. One reason they're invasive weeds is they are hard to get rid of. They produce lots of seeds that stay viable for years. I am still digging out seedlings.

I was reminded of all of this when This Is Reno published an article today about a weed quiz on the university's Cooperative Extension site. You are shown 10 pairs of pretty flowers and asked to choose which is a native and which is an invasive weed.  The obvious lesson is that some pretty flowers can cause problems for rivers, farmlands, grazing areas, and more. We need to be aware of what we're nurturing in our yards.

How about trying your luck with the quiz? Notice I'm breaking my new rule about including at least one photo in every post—no cheating on the quiz! See if you can identify the spotted knapweed when it appears. I did this time!