Pictures of Noxious Plants

"Noxious" weeds are so called because they are harmful (from the Latin, nocere, to harm). Since this is a subjective term, I use the terminology "noxious weeds" from a number of perspectives in this photo gallery, showing pictures of a wide variety of plants that deserve that label.

Who would want to look at pictures of weeds? People who need help identifying them, that's who. And why bother identifying weeds first, before trying to control them? Firstly, not all weeds are noxious plants, in which cases you can save yourself the bother of attempting eradication. And even in the cases where they are noxious, it's better to know something about the enemy before going into battle.

If the vegetation in your landscaping is diverse, there's a good chance you're unwittingly growing noxious plants that could make kids or pets sick, if ingested. It's amazing how many of the most common weeds, landscape plants and natives are toxic, or at least have toxic parts (leaves, berries, etc.). I cite a few examples in this short list of poisonous plants and supply you with pictures of them.

This photo gallery could help you ward off an unfortunate encounter with an infamous noxious plant: poison sumac, that rash-causing shrub. Browse my images to identify this noxious plant and avoid it. My poison sumac photo gallery includes closeup photos of the shrub's plant parts.

Don't step in that patch of poison ivy! I offer a poison ivy photo gallery here for identification purposes, so that you'll know what this noxious plant looks like. This resource shows the weed at different stages of maturity and in a variety of habitats.

Photos of invasive plants are a great learning tool for getting to know what they look like, after which you can routinely remove them from your landscape as you encounter them. But as my pictures demonstrate, some of these "invaders" are so attractive that you will have to force yourself to pull them!