Dixon Patch Viewfinder: Weedy Elegance Along the City's Back Streets

While writing a Then and Now column about the history of local crop irrigation, I decided to take my camera out one morning and look at the other end of the spectrum: weeds. 

Weeds adjust to the environment, rather than asking the environment to adjust to them. They're often survivors, sucking up just enough moisure with long root systems to make it through the long, hot summer, or going dormant during the summer aboveground, only to regrow from roots during the wet season.

Along with this toughness comes a certain beauty, as you'll see in these photos taken through the macro lens of a cameraphone.

Remember that a flowering American Beauty rosebush in the middle of a golf fairway is a weed by definition.

It would be interesting to know which of the weeds shown here are native and which arrived from elsewhere.