Wearing gloves for yanking weeds protects your hands against scratches and abrasion and from the odors weeds emit, especially when they’re crushed or handled. Often the odors signal. Occasionally the sap of weeds that are smelly could be irritating to your skin. A few weeds have pleasant smells, too.
Low-Growing Weeds
Often growing in large groups, pineapple weed (Chamomilla suaveolens), a 6- to 12-inch-tall annual plant, has finely dissected foliage and pineapple-shaped yellowish blossoms. It releases a pleasant odor that looks like lemon when itcrushed or’s walked . Another little weed that looks like lemon weed, mayweed chamomile (Anthemis cotula) differs because it has little, white, daisylike flowers, more finely dissected leaves, and an unpleasant odor when crushed.
Enormous Weeds
One of those largest-growing and smelliest weeds, datura (Datura spp.) , also called stinkweed, includes two sources of odor. The leaves have an unpleasant smell and the snowy, trumpet-shaped blossoms have a sweet odor. Depending upon the species, the plants can reach 2 to 5 feet tall. They develop in waste areas and also have spiny fruits, around. All plant parts are poisonous if consumed. Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium) is an annual plant which can reach 4 feet tall. Possibly the ancestral blossom weed, fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a perennial growing from 4 to 10 feet tall. It’s a licoricelike sweet odor when crushed. It grows in open, disturbed areas in USDA zones 4 through 9, often in dense stands. Native to the Mediterranean, fennel has feathery leaves and a flat head of blossoms.
Interesting Pods
Distinctive because of the round, flat pods it occupies, field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) is a part of the mustard family, or Cruciferae, and is a winter or summer annual native to Europe. It grows to about 18 inches tall with clusters of white flowers. It’s an unpleasant smell, especially when crushed. The leaves is pungently flavored with a taste involving garlic and mustard. Combining a strong odor with a sticky substance produced by black hairs on its leaves and stems, clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra) has conspicuouslong, slender seed pods which accompany the showy white blossoms, which possess long, pink to purple stamens. This Mediterranean annual weed grows 1 to 3 feet tall.
Other Smelly Weeds
In areas with moist soils such as meadows, marsh pools and edges in floodplains, pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) can be an invasive weed. The low-growing includes a strong, minty odor. This European native develops in USDA zones 6. Violet, pink or blue flowers bloom in whorls along the stem areas that are upper. Also native to Europe, common yarrow (Achillea millefolium), which develops in USDA zones 3 through 9, has ferny-looking leaves and clusters of white or yellowish flowers at stalk ends. The leaves have a sagelike odor that continues in plants. Common yarrow is a weed in lawns and landscapes besides naturalizing into plant life, such as coastal bluffs, grasslands, salt marshes and sand dunes.