WEED IDENTIFICATION

Sri S. Tjitrosoedirdjo
Affiliate scientist & Herbarium curator of SEAMEO BIOTROP Herbarium (BIOT)
(SEAMEO BIOTROP)
Jl. Raya Tajur Km 6, Bogor, Indonesia

REGIONAL TRAINING COURSE ON

THE NEW CONCEPT OF WEEDS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT
SEAMEO BIOTROP, Bogor, Indonesia, 29th – 31st March 2021
 What is Taxonomy?

Image by pixabay.com
 How to find the right book?

Image by Marisa Sias from Pixabay

https://pixabay.com/images/id-3500990/
 Plant Taxonomy

Study and description of the

variation of plant to produce a
classification and placing the
plant in a hierarchical
structure. The hierarchical
structure : kingdom, division,
class, order, family, genus and
species and two words system
of naming plant. Plant
taxonomist have two tasks:
to name organism and to
classify them
Plant taxonomist have two tasks: to
name organism and to classify them

Plant taxonomy provides

discovery and identification of
basic unit and their
relationship and the basis for
all studies on biodiversity,
weed management, medicine,
bio prospecting, plant
quarantine etc.
 Plant taxonomy relationship

Plant taxonomy provides discovery and identification of basic unit and their
relationship and the basis for all studies on biodiversity, weed management,
medicine, bio prospecting, plant quarantine etc.
 Plant in the tropic is more challenging than in temperate zone. Identification in the tropic
sometimes difficult because tropical flora contain many more species than temperate zone.
Identification in the tropic sometimes difficult because the habitat very diverse, and often
floras are not available
Weeds at different ecosystem and crops
 Weeds at different ecosystem and crops

Cultivated areas, the weeds species present will be determined by type of

cultivation. Annual crops, rice, corn, soy bean, horticulture etc. will
predominance by annual weeds. Plantations, forest plantations and
natural ecosystem, will be predominance by perennial weeds

Aquatic ecosystem will predominance by aquatic plant and semi aquatic

plant that have adapted to living in aquatic environments or the plant
that spend part of their time n water.

At the highland has more differs weeds than low land’s weeds, however less
in individual number. Low land weeds less differs but having numerous in
individual number.
Weed generally are much neglected by botanists, foresters or horticulturists, and
regarded as worthless by general public. The weeds are all around us and with
the disappearance of the original vegetations they are continuously increasing in
dominance and importance. Sometimes the weeds have been found commonly
however it is not collected or represented at the herbaria or flora.
 Identification

Weed identification is very important as one of the tool in the control and its management,
Before commencing of weed control, the initial step of the activity is recognizing the weeds
in the fields. Weed of similar appearance may require very different control methods.
Choosing the right control method can save money, and get more efficient control program
Plant Identification
• Identification of weed can take in several ways. You probably already able
to recognize some of kinds weeds. For determining the names of unknown
plants, both you and specialist need dependable techniques.

• For practical practice weeds can be classify as:

1. broad leave weed , mostly dicot
2. narrow leave weed, mostly grasses (Poaceae) and Cyperaceae
3. fern
 weed identification
Use image galleries and illustrated guides : combine two complementary
exercises

1. Intuitive learning (use your curiosity for building your mental images
database)
Simply browse randomly the galleries, look at the photos and get to learn
some names

2. Identifying (active learning, train your brain to access your mental images
database)
Focus on the identification of a given plant using a specimen from your
collections or one of your photos

3. If you cannot identify your plant, contact an expert, or search another

image gallery or book
• https://identify.plantnet.org/
 Some website for identification
• http://apps.kew.org/herbcat/gotoSearchPage.do
• http://www.florayfaunaiberica.org
• plantsystematics.org (http://www.plantsystematics.org/)
• http://www.tropicos.org
• http://www.diversityoflife.org/
• http://dbiodbs.units.it/carso/cercapiante01
• http://dbiodbs.units.it/carso/cercapiante01
• http://www.flora-on.pt/
• plantlist.org
• http://sciweb.nybg.org/Science2/vii2.asp or the Smithsonian:
http://collections.mnh.si.edu/search/botany/ .
• http://www.asianplant.net
• http://www.plantzafrica.com/
• https://plant.id/
Weeds books guide for identification
 Android version (just an example)
• https://www.plantsnap.com/
 Next step !!
• Boost your image recognition capacities !
-Do not only recognize / memorize images as wholes
-Learn and recognize also ‘plant characters’ such as:
Types of leaf arrangements
This observation method is similar to what you do
when
you play the games of the differences
Active & multi-scale image differentiation
-Not just images recognition but also images
differentiation
 The basic question
-Scientific names
-Vernacular names
-Taxonomic group
Scientific names = Genus + species epithet + authors
e.g Echinochloa colonum (L.) Link.
Scientific names are the only unambiguous plant names,
i.e.
complicate taxonomic rules define valid names and
synonyms based on
the method of the nomenclatural type :
1 Species name is defined by 1 ‘type’ specimen
Psychotria affinis Baker = Psychotria pervillei Baker
Herbarium BIOT Collection
1 Concept name is defined by 1 ‘type’ object
• Vernacular names (Local names)
-are more useful locally (because used by
local people)
-but are ambiguous (not based on a
nomenclatural method)
-1 name can represent more than one species
 Plant classification
Dicotyledons
Flowering plants

Seed plants Monocotyledons

Vascular plants
Gymnosperms

Ferns

Plants

Mosses
Liverworts
Hornworts
non Vascular plants
 Plant characters/Description
-Biological type
-Flower colour
-Flower size
-Leaf disposition
-Leaf length
-Leaf dissection
-Exudate
 Important information
• Origin
-Inner / Outer islands
-Islands
-Habitat
-Rarity
-IUCN
-Invasion status
-Invasiveness
 RECOGNIZING WEED’S FAMILY

• Plant morphological terminology we

can use “Plant Glossary”

Beentje, H. 2016. The Kew Plant

Glossary. An Illustrated dictionary of
Plant terms. Second Edition. Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Or we can use any other Plant Glossary

Book or Floras
 - Euphorbiaceae s.s. and Phyllantaceae

Euphorbiacea s. l.
- Earlier concept of Euphorbiaceae
6th largest plant family with > 9000 spp.

- Now reffered to as Euphorbiaceae in the broad sense or

Euphorbiaceae s.l. (sensu lato)
 New concept of Euphorbiaceae based on molecular
analyses Angiosperm Phylogeny group and others

Euphorbiaceae in the narrow sense & Euphorbiaceae “sensu stricto” (s.s.)

1. Euphorbiaceae s.s.
2. Phyllanthaceae
3. Putranjivaceae
4. Peraceae
5. Picrodendraceae
6. Pandaceae
7. Centroplacaceae
 Euphorbiaceae s.s. and Phyllantaceae
share characters

Always:
- Unisexual flowers
- Superior ovary
- Apical-axile placentation
- Leaves alternate, simple, stipulate
- Inconspicuous flowers
- Fruit dry and 3-lobed
 Euphorbiaceae s.s.
c. 218 genera , 6745 species

• Habit: Herbs, climbers, trees, and

succulent
• Distribution: Pantropical and cold
temperate
• Example weed’s genus: Croton, gland
Euphorbia Male

• Leaves: Alternate (Sometimes flower

female
opposite), margin entire to flower
dentate, often palmately veined,
foliar gland often present, hairs
various types
• Latex: present, white, yellow, red
or absent
• Inflorescence: A unique Cyathium,
glands and petal like structures
variable in shapes and colors,
stamen many, ovule 1 per locule

Euphorbia heterophylla L.
 Phyllanthaceae
c. 59 genera; 1200 species
• Habit: Herb
• Distribution: Cosmopolitan, except north temperate region
• Example of weed: Phyllanthus sp.
• Leaves
• Latex : absent
• Inflorescence: Flowers with 3-10 (19) stamens; 2 ovules per locule
• Fruit : dry, 3 lobed, explosive capsule, fruit can be samara (rare)

Phyllanthus debilis Phyllanthus amaris Phyllanthus sp.

 Asteraceae (Compositae)
c. 1600 genera, 25000species
• Habit: Herbs, shrubs, sometimes lianas, rarely trees
• Leaves opposite or alternate rarely whorled
• Distribution: cosmopolitan especially temperate zone, subtropic and tropics but it is rain
tropical rain forest
The Asteraceae has arrange of specialized morphological characters which are not found in
other families necessitating a special terminology especially for the inflorescence
• The flowers a compound ultimate inflorescence as head or capitulum
• The head segregated into 2 broad categories : 1. homogamous – all flowers of one
sexual type (staminate, pistillate or bisexual). 2. heterogamous – flowers of different
kinds (bisexual and sterile; bisexual and female (pistillate) or staminate, it has ray and
disk flower.
• Outer bracts of the head flower are called as phyllaries and form an outer involucre
around it

Chromolaena odorata Porophylum ruderale Bidens pilosa Sphilantes iabadisensis

 Poaceae (Gramineae)
c. 106 genera, 5500spp.

• Habit: Rhizomatous, stoloniferous or annual,

sometimes woody (bamboo)
• Stem (“culm”): rounded, often hollow, rounded
or flattened, noded
• Leaves: in two rows
• Inflorescence: comprising spikelets arranged in
open or contracted panicles, recemes or spikes.
Flower (floret) without sepal and petal
• Fruit: caryopsis
• Sometimes woody (bamboo)

Imperata cylindrica
 Cyperaceae
c. 106 genera, 5500 spp.

• Distribution: Worldwide except Antarctica, the

greatest generic diversity occurs in the tropics.
Particularly common in open wetlands but also
found in range of other habitats including savannahs
and forests, up to 5000 m asl.
• Rhizomatous to stoloniferous, or annual herbs. Scleria bancana
• Stems (culms) : mostly 3-sided, solid, rarely noded
• Leaves: 3-rank
• Inflorescence: simple or branched and umbel- like,
with 1-many partial inflorescence unit (spikelets)
• Fruit: a hard 1-seeded

Cyperus sp.
 RECOGNIZING PLANT FAMILIES
• To learn the recognize major group of plants, learning to recognize major families
is a major step in plant identification

• Each plant family has its own pattern of variation. Some families are easy to be
recognize, they have clearly discernible patterns of variation. You probably know a
few of them, others may be more difficult to learn because they have combination
features and differs by characters you have not yet learned to observe

• Consult one or more of the many references or study aids available at the
laboratory or library, sources of the info :floras, text book, discriptions, illustration
will help you to learn.

• If you can recognize that a plant is a member of a particular family, you have
eliminated all the other families.

• When we have recognize the family we could further go for genus and species
 Some broadleaves and narrow leaf
weed from weed of rice in Indonesia
 Further advise for weed identification .
• To ask someone who knows the weeds in the region such as botanist, plant specialist, or trained naturalist who knows the
plant. This is the fastest way, however depend on the time availability of the specialist. It is advice to provide
photos and good herbarium specimen of the weeds

• Comparison of the photographs or specimens of unknown weeds with photographs or drawing in popular or scientific books,
weed’s manual, weeds identification guide books, articles, leaflets or local Flora.

• Comparison of unknown weed to previously determined herbarium specimen can be very helpful. You have to access to an
herbarium (an institution who has a collection of dry plant or preserved specimens). Local Herbaria can be consulted. In
Indonesia list of the herbaria can be search at: “Index Herbariorum Indonesianum” published by LIPI Press or
“Index Herbariorum” a worldwide index of Herbaria in the world by their web site.

• The explosive growth in computer technology possible to construct a detail data base of taxa and their characteristics. The
unknown weeds are not easily search, the known weed’s name can be easily validated. CABI Compendium,
PLANTLIST,

• Comparing with some applications in android such as plantsnap, xervio, etc.

• Identification using the aid of the key and description in the flora of the region. Using the key should be aware on the terms
used in plant identification and characters and their variation.

• One of the book which could be use to identify up to family level:

• Geesink, R., A.J.M. Leeuwenberg, C.E. Risdale, J.F. Veldkamp. 1981. Thonner’s analytical key to the families of flowering
plants. PUDOC. Centre for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation Wageningen. Leiden University Press.
Online image galleries (brows freely a
gallery of images)
• www.seychellesplantgallery.com
http://www.mi-aime-a-ou.com/flore_ile_reunion.php
http://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/sbf/activ_reunion.htm
http://picasaweb.google.com/101714743016600122468/Orchidees
DeLaReunion?gsessionid=U
HEZn6dYgutP3UHFa-bQTP0kICa9FUK3
http://www.westafricanplants.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?pag
e_id=44
https://floraofsingapore.wordpress.com/
http://cookislands.bishopmuseum.org/search.asp
http://wildlifeofhawaii.com/flowers/
• https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/28580
Thank you