I am having the worst luck figuring this out, Google is not helping at all. i'm only getting hits on more popular sticker bur plants, but i need info for these ones. I have run into just about every single kind of sticker there is in central Texas since i go about barefoot my whole life here. i've seen these things before but now I have them in the lawn where we rent, I need to know what plant they are coming from. they are teeny tiny brown stickers with only one spike and a flat or crumpled looking end. they're painful and i gotta know where they are coming from.

the ring/band in the photo is my 2millimeter band. the stickers are very tiny and flat with one tiny spike.

Could they be from sandspur?
I am not familiar what type there might be in Texas but when I was in Florida for nine years, these plants were prevalent. They were more inclined to be in the sparser area of the lawn or vacant lots. They really hurt when stepped on.

Hey Erin, google "Sandspur" on line and look at the small, prone plants pictured there. Plus there is a nice image of the sticker part. I think that this could be the culprit!

BigBill said:

sorry bill but i am getting something completely different when i search sandspur. these only have one spike and are flat and much smaller.
the google images don't match mine at all.
i have run into sandspur before tho i've seen all kinds of stickers.
for some reason no one knows what these tiny ones are. maybe because they aren't as ouchie as the big sticker burs , but my husband is allergic to grasses and gets painfully sore when these stick him. i really want to know what they are

I have seen those stickers but can't remember what the plant looked like. - still thinking...

Goathead stickers maybe? Not fun to step on if you're barefooted.

GrammaChar said:Goathead stickers maybe? Not fun to step on if you're barefooted.

no they look nothing like goathead stickers. they aren't that painful. they're extremely tiny and only have one spike, very tiny.

http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTN... Is this your plant?

Puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris) is found in Texas: https://www.texasinvasives.org...

Tribulus terrestris, puncturevine, is the same thing as goathead, so apparently that's been eliminated.

Is it possible that these ID stickers initially have more than one spine but come apart when they get picked up, making it seem like they only have one?

Do you have any idea if they are coming from a grass or another kind of weed in the lawn?

Thank goodness it's NOT goatheads!

Can you upload photos of the leaves and stems of the plant that the burs/stickers come from?

I think this may be it, Soliva sessilis:

http://www.discoverlife.org/20...

Lawn Burweed (Soliva sessilis)

Puncturevine is what was thinking of and it is not the same as goathead.

sooby said:Tribulus terrestris, puncturevine, is the same thing as goathead, so apparently that's been eliminated.

Is it possible that these ID stickers initially have more than one spine but come apart when they get picked up, making it seem like they only have one?

Do you have any idea if they are coming from a grass or another kind of weed in the lawn?

to answer your question, they aren't pieces, they are indeed found on the ground just as they are. when i look extremely closely at the sparse lawn i see them on the ground.

i wanted to guess they come from a grass but to be honest i don't know, cuz there's other weeds in the lawn besides grass. and looking at grass stickers hasn't returned anything helpful

sooby said:I think this may be it, Soliva sessilis:

OMG! i think that's it! i has to look up other pics but the stickers look spot on! thank you so much! i think the plants may have already died off in my lawn this hot season but i am going to go look for those naughty plants !

porkpal said:Puncturevine is what was thinking of and it is not the same as goathead.

That may be another common name problem then, because when I looked it up because I'm not familiar with it I got both common names referring to Tribulus terrestris, and they're also both given for it in the NGA database:

Puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris)

They are NOT the same plant. Both leaves and seeds are different.

ctcarol said:They are NOT the same plant. Both leaves and seeds are different.

What botanical name do you and porkpal give to each?

Wikipedia also gives goat's head and puncture vine as common names for the same plant as did the other references I looked at. So there must be another plant that gets one or both as common names.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Also the UC IPM link that Carol posted gives both common names for the same plant:

"Puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris) is an aptly named summer annual found......... Another common name is "goathead.""