Plant Spotlight - Redroot Amaranth

Scientific Name: Amaranthus retroflexus

Common Name: redroot amaranth, redroot pigweed

Plant Family: Amaranthaceae, the amaranth family

Harvey Park, pre-settlers

As you can see from archival photos, Harvey Park of the 50s looked very different than the Harvey Park of today. The biggest difference, to my eyes, is that there were no trees.  Before that though, there were no houses, and Harvey Park was a ranch, roamed by herds of cattle. Before even that, Harvey Park was home to the native Colorado shortgrass prairie.

Though there are many plant species that make up the shortgrass prairie, the landscape would have been largely dominated by just these two warm-season, C4 grasses:
Blue gramma - Bouteloua gracilis

and
Buffalo grass - Bouteloua dactyloides

Colorado Noxious Weeds

The Colorado Department of Agriculture publishes a list of the "worst" noxious weeds in the state. It separates them into List A, List B, List C, and Watch List, from "most noxious" to "least noxious" respectively. You can see the full list here, but I've compiled a short(er) list of plants that you might expect to see in Harvey Park, or Denver in general. I'd hope that if you think you have some of them growing in your yard (accidentally or deliberately), you'll consider removing them as quickly and aggressively as possible. While some of these plants have more benign lookalikes, quite a few of them have lookalikes that are also nasty weeds. Please google these plants or search for them on the Colorado DoA website for more information about how to identify them, why they're a problem, and how to best get rid of them.

List A
Myrtle spurge - Euphorbia myrsinites

Purple Loostrife - Lythrum salicaria