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Soapweeds?

B

Big Muddy rancher

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Feb 10, 2005
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Big Muddy valley
Are Soapweeds considered at native plant to your areas? Or are they invasive plants or Non Natives?

Just curious because in Canada they have been put on the Endangered Species list. Which by the way I think is crazy.
 
An old timer told me, when I was a kid, that most of the weeds around here came in with the Rail Road - he pointed out, in the late 40's, that 90% of the weeds were with in 200' feet of the Rail Road.

In the past 50 some years I have seen them spread over our valley
 
Railroad would make sense in the dispersing of seeds, etc.

But "rare" surprises me as we've got them on this side of the Mississippi!
 
We had some here but they are used as lanscape for the most part.. We had someone clean up over here a few years ago and they decided to pull all of ours out. No big deal I guess but I was a bit miffed at the time.
 
Doesn't make sense that they'd come in on the rail road......unless they are coming in to garden centers via the railroad. Lots of garden centers carry them.


We have them all over the state of Texas. I'd think the biggest culpret in spreading them is wind and birds spreadin the seeds from the pods. The seeds are hardy, and will grow in most any sandy or clay soil. Once established they are hard to git rid of.
 
I don't know if our soapweeds are native or not..but I know that they've been around for over 80yrs here. I've seen pictures of them from old photo's of the area.
They sure are hard to kill, since the roots run clear to china! Makes a great hideout for rattlesnakes and other little critters though. Cows love the pods to munch on...guess I would miss them if they all disappeared.
 
Jassy said:
I don't know if our soapweeds are native or not..but I know that they've been around for over 80yrs here. I've seen pictures of them from old photo's of the area.
They sure are hard to kill, since the roots run clear to china! Makes a great hideout for rattlesnakes and other little critters though. Cows love the pods to munch on...guess I would miss them if they all disappeared.
Click to expand...

Sure help hold that sand from erodin', don't they? :)
 
I have read that the indians used the roots for it's soap, can't document that but it would lead you to believe that it is native to the great plains.
 

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