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weed
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
The basic definition of a weed is merely any plant growing where you don't want it to. Technically, an apple tree can be a weed if it's somewhere you don't want it to be.
I think the usual definition is closer to "a plant that REALLY wants to be in a space you don't want it to be, and refuses to leave once it's in".
For example, I think it's fairly uncontroversial to call grass a weed. Sure, we like our lawns, but they really want to spread anywhere they can. They are more aggressive than dandelions, and the only reason we hate dandelions more is their taproot.