What in Tarnation?

About two weeks ago, my wife noticed a plant on our property that looked, well, suspicious. If it were just the one, that would be easy, dig it up, throw it away, and nobody would know any better. But maybe there were others. We started looking around our yard and found there were probably hundreds of these plants. We started to get worried. How do we discreetly rid ourselves of hundreds of these plants. And can we possibly find and destroy all of them? Burning might not be such a good idea. This is the plant I'm talking about:


I hope this plant isn't what it looks like

After a not so restful night we decided to study this plant further. Maybe it wasn't what we thought it was. Maybe it was a look-alike. Then we found several flowering plants. This should help us to positively identify the plant. The flower looked like this:

It turns out that it is illgal to not remove this plant if it is on your property in certain counties in Montana. Fortunately, we don't live in Montana, as getting this many plants under control quickly would be a real chore. I checked our state's list of weeds that homesteaders are required to control, and this plant was not on the list. However, it is an invasive and noxious weed brought to the northwestern United States from Europe about a century ago that is quite prevalent in the area. It is spread by seed which can number over 1000 per plant, which can be transported throughout the region in hay. The plant is called sulphur cinquefoil. It is a type of rose and has a woody root that should be removed along with the plant to prevent it from growing back.

We are so relieved that this plant isn't what we though it was. This stuff is growing along side the road going through our property, not just by the house. This situation also got us thinking about what we would do if we were to find an illegal plant, or worse, a whole field or forest full of them. I guess self-reporting might bring a lighter penalty than if your neighbor makes a report to the police. But if the police started visiting all the neighbors on our account, it might not make a good impression, considering we haven't met all of them yet. Becoming more independent is making me learn a lot more and think a lot more than I used to.