Why the contempt for ragweed, you ask? Is it because it is an ugly duckling that, unlike the fairy tale, will never mature into a beautiful swan, but only gets uglier? Of course not. If anyone can love an ugly weed, it's me.
Actually, my contempt is mostly a lot of posturing. It's just that ragweed is the scourge of allergy sufferers, puffing up their weepy eyes and scouring their sinuses with steel wool. And it gets away with it! All the blame falls on lovely, noticeable goldenrod, which has the misfortune of being in full bloom at the same as ragweed.
Because ragweed is so unnoticeable, ignored and overlooked, it sneaks beneath the teary-eyed gaze of allergy suffers. Their gaze falls upon the golden-yellow wands of goldenrod. Things are said, blame is placed and bad blood congeals. It's just not right.
Common Ragweed, found from sea to shining sea, from Canada down to Brazil, spills a quarter of a billion tons of pollen into the air each season. You'd think there'd be no room for oxygen. A single plant can produce several million grains of pollen with nary a thought. . By sheer bulk of pollen alone, Common Ragweed insures pollination. Wands of male flowers simply inundate the less numerous female flowers, which are hidden among the clusters of bracts below, with pollen.
The pollen is tiny and light, engineered by Mother Nature to be carried aloft by even the slightest breeze rather than insects. Caught on a good stiff wind, the pollen is easily spread to plants more than a mile away.
Because ragweed relies upon the wind for pollen dispersal, the flowers never evolved to entice insects. There are no showy neon colors, bright billboards or sweet aroma to lure 6-legged incubi into the floral brothel. As a consequence, ragweed has small green flowers, and is easy to overlook when blaming something, anything for all this hay fever going 'round.
Through the years, Common Ragweed has had some medicinal uses. The Cheyenne treated bowel cramps with ragweed tea, while the Nanticoke used it as a laxative. The Delaware used ragweed as a poultice to prevent blood poisoning, while Native Americans in Utah used a leaf tea on bandages for sore eyes. And the Meskwaki Indians chewed the roots of Great Ragweed to drive away fear in the night.
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