FAQs
What is a weed?
A weed is an unwanted species, for reasons including:
Introduced alien species
Competes with agricultural crops
Volunteer crop species
Contamination of crop harvest
Contamination of animal products
Affects the operation of farm machinery
Injurious to livestock and wildlife
Injurious to humans
Host plant for pests
Host plant for diseases
Provides shelter for feral animals
Allergenic
Toxic
Narcotic
Invades grazing land
Low nutritional forage value
Unpalatable
Hybridizes
Allelopathic
Changes soil chemistry
Increases soil erosion
Parasitic
Damage to property and infrastructure
Degrades habitat for native plants and animals
Climbing or smothering growth habit
Decreases recreation opportunities
Fire hazardÂ
Impacts on waterways and water resources
Deprives people and ecosystems of water resources
Clogs irrigation channels
Clogs drinking, irrigation and hydroelectric power water pipes.
Blocks navigation and flood control
Invades marine environments
Scientific Names
The World Flora Online (WFO) used as the reference for most of the "accepted" species name (prior to June 2023 The Plant List had been used)
We also include ~7,000 commonly used synonyms (aka = also known as)
If you are looking for a name that is not listed please contact us so we can considering adding it
Family Names
Since authorities can use different family names, we have included family names from The Plant List, International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and US Department of Agriculture
We have given a priority to "eae" endings for consistency, and list alternative names as aka for the common families:
Apiaceae aka Umbelliferae
Asteraceae aka Compositae
Brassicaceae aka Cruciferae
Fabaceae aka Leguminosae
Lamiaceae aka Labiatae
Poaceae aka Gramineae
Priority given to the most commonly used family name
Where species have been reclassified, or families re-assigned, we include previous family names as aka because many sources continue to use the names
Common Names
The database currently has 100,000+ common names (in a number of languages)
The greatest number are English (~30,000) - French, German, Spanish (~6,000 each) - Chinese (~5,000) - Russian (~3,000) - with lesser numbers for other languages
We will add a facility for users to easily contribute more common names and when we have a sufficient number, you will be able to search for species by a "local" common name
See More Info (ie. links to other websites)
KYW does not currently provide "fact sheets" for species because there are usually other on-line sources that already have relevant species information
These links are to external websites and KYW is not responsible for any content
If you know of other websites with useful information, please contact us
My Weedsâ„¢
Any data or text you add to your My Weedsâ„¢ library remains your copyright property and KYW does not in anyway use or share this information with other parties except to store the information so that you can access it
Photographs - Copyright & Creative Commons
The photographs displayed on this site have been sourced from photographers who have given permission for KYW to use their work, or who have licenced their work under a creative commons licence, or works that are in the public domain
Please note that the licencing information provided by KYW is based on information as at the time of image download and should not be relied upon for current licencing
If you intend to use any photographs it is your responsibility to visit the original source and to make your own determination as to licencing arrangements
Languages
At present the site text content is in English and we plan to translate other languages in the future
We have already done some translations and provide basic site navigation and species info in 40+ languages
We used Google translate to generate the initial translations and then verified translations using "local" language sites - we apologize in advance for any inaccuracies and welcome your feedback regarding any corrections or improvements
Privacy & Security
Your account login details are managed off site by Auth0 - a specialist application to ensure the protection of your user identity and password
Subscription payments are managed by PayPal - KYW does not store your payment details
The database and website is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure industry standard levels of accessibility, security and backup
Countries & Regions
Since most countries do not have a published list of weed species, KYW has used a sampling methodology to arrive at lists of species by region (with the exceptions of Australia and New Zealand)
When searching you can select your country to find your region, or select a region to see what countries are included
KYW will be further developing country (and state/province) level data and welcome feedback from weed societies and/or accredited academic teams who are interested in helping to provide local intelligence
In the News
We collect news articles about weeds and update the database each month
These are links to external websites and KYW is not responsible for any news content
Please note - some sites have a limit on the number of articles you can view (usually per month) - and some sites have short surveys that you must answer to get access - this data is collected by the news site and not KYW