This appears to be a type winter weed, but that's just an guess.
Location south Louisiana
Picture taken mid January

Looks like a big patch of "dock"; genus is Rumex, can't recall sp. for sure, maybe crispus or obtusifius.

I first thought Ajuga of some sort, but it does resemble Rumex crispus, commonly called "Curly Dock":

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG...

More photo's here: http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/w...

We have a lot of that growing here in East Texas. It's definitely a Rumex.

It's a good plant with lots of uses.

dave said:It's a good plant with lots of uses.

I will have to read up on this plant ... I've always considered it a weed to pull.

I'd love to know which species is pictured above. I have the exact one here.

It's not the curly dock (Rumex crispus). The leaves are flat and not at all curled.

It's not the sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella). The leaves aren't heart or arrow shaped at all.

I'll try to go get a photo of one of mine.

This was my first post here and I thought, I'll give it a shot and show them this mystery plant that for some reason looks edible. Less than 30 min later it's identified by 3 people. Amazing. This is a site I'll definitely frequent.
Thank you


Dave;
I will get a couple better photos as soon as I can

1 more question if I may;
as someone that's new to gardening and even newer to this site where should I go to learn more on vegetable gardening

dborel, welcome to ATP! You can easily navigate the site by using the green tabs at the top of the pages. The forums tab will list all of our forums, and from there you can find and watch any forum
We just happen to have a veggie forum
http://garden.org/forums/view/...

When it comes to ID, we have some real experts here. They never fail.

Karen

dborel, the first person to post was Iochroma and that person signed up after you did! Two new members in one thread, very nice.

I just got back from going out to get some pictures. I found several nice specimens to photograph. Here's what I have:

Rumex pulcher maybe?

http://luirig.altervista.org/s...

I've checked all the species in your area Dave, I don't know where dborel is but that's the only one which looks to fit.

http://luirig.altervista.org/f...

(just read again, south Louisiana!)

Reading about this species, the Rumex pulcher is called "fiddle dock" and you can easily see why - the leaves are shaped much like a fiddle or violin.

Mine are perfectly straight in shape and have none of that fiddle look to them.

Rumex pulcher (from wikipedia commons):

That was the only thing against it Dave, but most photos of leaves don't show such a marked waist.

Nor does this drawing ..

Check out the herbarium specimen, it doesn't have the waist either (if it's correct)

http://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/pr...

Quite straight leaves here too ..

http://sbwildflowers.wordpress...

I can see a slight waist in some leaves on yours too Dave, on the younger leaves. One looks a bit more just waved, maybe they lose the waist on mature leaves or are variable, or have subspecies?

Rumex pulcher, native of Europe found through much of the east of the United States west to Texas. Look for hairy stems. ..

http://www.eattheweeds.com/sor...

How about Rumex hastatalus:

http://www.missouriplants.com/...

Rumex hastatalus has pronounced lobes at the bottom of the leaves Lin, the leaves also go very narrow near the base.

Janet, you may be right after all. Lin, I'm pretty sure it's not hastatalus.

I think for my part, I'll wait until it bolts and then that will give us an additional point of comparison.

LOL, don't mind me ... I wasn't looking that closely. I'm finding that there sure are a lot of varieties of Rumex out there.

Thank you to everybody that's chimed in. I'm still impressed.
Here's a couple better photos (sorry for the delay)



Any thought on edibility?