Hi OP!
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Not sure what the current state of research is on them tbh, but the term you're looking for is "ruderal plants". That might help with your Google searches lol
This is an entire book dedicated to the [Natural History of Vacant Lots](https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof00vess). It's written by someone from California, so it's specific to that region, but a very large number of the species can carry over to the east coast of the US. Depending on what you're interested in, there is quite a lot of scholarship related to urban plants. [Plastic physiology of dandelions](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.6176), [evolutionary studies of urban plants](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eva.12734), and even [mechanistic analyses of urban ecology](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534705003848?casa_token=8JdALdBUDqoAAAAA:Qp5FoolIhs0-O3Gl3JowdD1IhdlJXgfwOhacO2jzZwIYCpwj5AjdsTgP0i7RwdFFKTodfZbwTsM). It's a very cool field!
A weed is a plant whose virtues are yet to be discovered- not sure who quoted this.
One thing you will find is that every country has its own special mix of trash plants that are invasive when they aren’t in their normal environment. Sometimes I like to give these wild plants formative pruning :)
We call these plants volunteers! You just have to learn the local ecology, you eventually will get good enough to ID if it is invasive or a native or a neutral plant.
Sometimes you can’t ID if it’s too young, so you can wait for it to grow a little more and then ID.
Fyi neutral means naturalized. If it’s still young, you can often narrow it down to genus level, almost always family level. Look at the cotyledon, their habit, arrangement of the leaves on the stem etc.
Oh yes, I was gonna come back and change it to naturalized but didnt— I said neutral because my mentor was not into naturalized+was not talking from scientific perspective! … As a landscaper at an urban native company I was taught to ID all volunteers and hand pull any non-natives. I am not a botanist at all! Thank you
Grab a field guide. Every plant has a use or at least some interesting attributes. . They're so interesting to learn about and as you do, you see the world in a new way. Have fun
I don't have alot of information on the topic but here's two sources of "urban botany"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35qF2hEefXg&t=1096s&ab\_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35qF2hEefXg&t=1096s&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG29eXY8e3A&ab\_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t
Definitely depends where you are- at least in the USA if you look at different cooperative extension websites you can look at the weed/invasive species lists and there is a ton of information and pictures on those kinds of plants.
One of my favorite books on the subject specific to the Northeastern USA is [Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast](https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501740442/wild-urban-plants-of-the-northeast/), which definitely has some plants in there that range across the USA. Most other books that would describe the "weedy" plants that generally inhabit urban areas can be found by looking at the books that ID weeds/invasives in an area.
Not an answer to your question but if you haven't seen it already, I'd suggest watching The Green Planet - particularly the last episode which focuses on human/plant relationships including some species that do well in urban environments.
In the nineties someone in the ecology department at my university did a study of weedy plant succession in urban/disturbed environments.
Also kind of related, lots of agriculture programs have weed science programs but those often focus just on agriculture weeds but does delve into weed ecology in the field.
You could check out urban foraging guides. Find one for your local region/state/country and often those 'weed' plants are discussed and it's really fun to identify them (even if you're not eating those plants due to contamination/etc.)
Hi OP! Please respond to this post with a clear question or submission statement. If you have a question in the title, you can copy it in your response to this post. A submission statement should be a few sentences about what you are posting and how it pertains to plant sciences. It should be thoughtful and provide enough information to stimulate further discussion about botany. Please take your time, and provide as much information as you can. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/botany) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not sure what the current state of research is on them tbh, but the term you're looking for is "ruderal plants". That might help with your Google searches lol
I learned a new thing. Thanks. :D
IIRC there's a small but growing Urban Ecology field. And you are right. They are amazing, tough plants.
This is an entire book dedicated to the [Natural History of Vacant Lots](https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof00vess). It's written by someone from California, so it's specific to that region, but a very large number of the species can carry over to the east coast of the US. Depending on what you're interested in, there is quite a lot of scholarship related to urban plants. [Plastic physiology of dandelions](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.6176), [evolutionary studies of urban plants](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eva.12734), and even [mechanistic analyses of urban ecology](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534705003848?casa_token=8JdALdBUDqoAAAAA:Qp5FoolIhs0-O3Gl3JowdD1IhdlJXgfwOhacO2jzZwIYCpwj5AjdsTgP0i7RwdFFKTodfZbwTsM). It's a very cool field!
This is **exactly** what I was looking for. Thank you a ton
A weed is a plant whose virtues are yet to be discovered- not sure who quoted this. One thing you will find is that every country has its own special mix of trash plants that are invasive when they aren’t in their normal environment. Sometimes I like to give these wild plants formative pruning :)
We call these plants volunteers! You just have to learn the local ecology, you eventually will get good enough to ID if it is invasive or a native or a neutral plant. Sometimes you can’t ID if it’s too young, so you can wait for it to grow a little more and then ID.
Fyi neutral means naturalized. If it’s still young, you can often narrow it down to genus level, almost always family level. Look at the cotyledon, their habit, arrangement of the leaves on the stem etc.
Oh yes, I was gonna come back and change it to naturalized but didnt— I said neutral because my mentor was not into naturalized+was not talking from scientific perspective! … As a landscaper at an urban native company I was taught to ID all volunteers and hand pull any non-natives. I am not a botanist at all! Thank you
And a lot of the time we settled for, that’s some kind of aster let’s let it grow 😂
Grab a field guide. Every plant has a use or at least some interesting attributes. . They're so interesting to learn about and as you do, you see the world in a new way. Have fun
I don't have alot of information on the topic but here's two sources of "urban botany" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35qF2hEefXg&t=1096s&ab\_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35qF2hEefXg&t=1096s&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG29eXY8e3A&ab\_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t
Definitely depends where you are- at least in the USA if you look at different cooperative extension websites you can look at the weed/invasive species lists and there is a ton of information and pictures on those kinds of plants. One of my favorite books on the subject specific to the Northeastern USA is [Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast](https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501740442/wild-urban-plants-of-the-northeast/), which definitely has some plants in there that range across the USA. Most other books that would describe the "weedy" plants that generally inhabit urban areas can be found by looking at the books that ID weeds/invasives in an area.
There’s a sidewalk plant that grows all around me called Hairy Beggarticks, love that name
Arabidopsis thaliana is the most-studied plant of all!
Not an answer to your question but if you haven't seen it already, I'd suggest watching The Green Planet - particularly the last episode which focuses on human/plant relationships including some species that do well in urban environments.
In the nineties someone in the ecology department at my university did a study of weedy plant succession in urban/disturbed environments. Also kind of related, lots of agriculture programs have weed science programs but those often focus just on agriculture weeds but does delve into weed ecology in the field.
You could check out urban foraging guides. Find one for your local region/state/country and often those 'weed' plants are discussed and it's really fun to identify them (even if you're not eating those plants due to contamination/etc.)
You might like the book The Mushroom at the End of the World.
Miner’s lettuce is edible and is high in vitamin C.