During our rainy season all plants from big trees to the smallest of weeds compete each other for the sun and water. It is survival of the fittest at its best. Even the understory of trees are full of greens, shrubs and vines. But most of these are commonly called weeds, or plants not normally useful for people or animals. They are volunteers and have the capacity to grow and complete their life cycle in the shortest available favorable conditions.
These plants also produce a lot of seeds naturally endowed with mechanisms to be transported to long distances by many carriers, like humans, animals, insects, winds and water. And one thing humans detest about them is their capacity of being invasive or colonizer. But in my case, I love many of them because they are favorite of butterflies, either as host plants for caterpillars or nectar plants for the adults. They abound around our vicinity in the province, and I now compete with the butterflies in getting close to these weeds.
This is almost only one foot in height, and those flowers are tiny! I love these different stages of blooms.
Mimosa diplotricha bloom, about 1.5 cm in diameter
those white flowers at the bottom are already the seeds ready for dispersal, the white parts are propagules to spread them by air
Centrosema pubescens - a leguminous vine
a petal of this is about half a centimeter in width, it is a monocot weed
This is a bushy vine producing those off-whitish flowers. The plant grows wildly and very difficult to control, even the roots left on the soil will still grow. Only adult insects love this, nothing seems to eat the leaves.
(i wonder why the images don't appear well above)
