Plant ID Help

[HeartsDelight]

We have tons of plantain on our farm I've never seen any with hairs like that nor does it turn purple in frost. Maybe its a slightly different species though?
Our plantain is one of our chickens favorite treats.

There are many species.

Plantago subnuda (a California native species) is particularly hairy as seedlings and young plants, but retains some even to adulthood. This is absolutely unlikely to be subnuda due to the OP's location, but it looks similar enough with only a few leaves that the hairiness looks genus-normal to me.

 

[HeartsDelight]

I put the photo into iNaturalist, which is one of the better machine learning ID applications out there.

It did not even mechanically get genus right. It suggested one extremely rare, not found on this continent plantago, well down a list of other absolutely wrong options.

I'm sure if I actually uploaded the file, other users would mechanically ID this as a plantago species there. Still requires human eyeballs.

Sure, once you know to search for "plantago" you get different results from Google and DDG. You have to have a place to start from first.

I like DDG a lot, by the way, and use it myself. I have nothing against the tech. I'm merely saying there is NO search engine you can input this atypical specimen photo, or type "what is this purple hairy flat plant in my yard" and actually get useable data about the plant in question. That doesn't *exist*.

 

[HeartsDelight]

I'll take some photos of my subnuda tomorrow, I have lot of seedlings as well as some year-olds. Again, I do not at all think this is the species you have, but it will show the hairy juvenile leaves and rosette shape well enough.

 

[Fishkeeper]

Ooh, yes, I love INaturalist! It's not so good with foliage only, not yet. It really shines for identifying flowers, though, and it's great at bugs if you can get a good picture up close. Just wait for some humans to get a look at it, someone will know.

 

[Bellevan]

Got what I hope could be considered better pictures! I'm not sure if the second picture is a more mature version of the same plant or something different.

 

[HeartsDelight]

View attachment 1727914 View attachment 1727915
Got what I hope could be considered better pictures! I'm not sure if the second picture is a more mature version of the same plant or something different.

Yep! Definitely plantain, a seedling and a teenaged plant.

 

[Bellevan]

Yep! Definitely plantain, a seedling and a teenaged plant.

Awesome! Thanks for the help everyone c: