You can see that the U.S. Dept of Interior and the U.S. Forest Service are in full support of this scarenario. Stupid is as stupid does. As for AHS…what’s funny is that hikers are probably the #1 carriers of non-native plant seeds deep into our forests. Getting more people on trails (an AHS goal) is the worst thing you can do if you care about stopping the spread of naturalized plants. Nevertheless, they are really, really, REALLY against these plants doing what people have already done everywhere: “Wreaking havoc on ecosystems.” More transference; blame the plants, not yourself. At least their self esteem remains intact. Like the NPNs, they are doing ‘good’ works. In all its glory, the NPN poster child, Garlic Mustard, is the true ‘low hanging fruit’ when it comes to ‘invasive’ plant removal because it comes out so easily. Scientists claim it’s allelopathic (soil poisoner) probably because you can sometimes find these plants all by their lonesomes on woodland trails . Except, you can also find them in close association with native and other non-native plants. Question: Will you believe your own eyes or an NPN-allied scientist WRT whether this plant can quash growth of other plants with its ‘poison’?
To prepare you for the next pic, here is a little vid for you:
I love this pic! To me it represents the ‘feel good’ aspect to this non-native plant removal movement. Locals had recently pulled the easily-pulled Garlic Mustard and left the rest, which includes: stiltgrass, ailanthus, multiflora rose, vinca, cinnamon vine, jap honeysuckle, autumn olive, gill-over-the-ground. It’s almost like one of those ‘find it’ games in the Sunday paper except, evidently, the locals couldn’t. They only found one kind of ‘invasive’ plant in this jumble. Let’s see…one for nine…that’s a BA of .111…well below the “Mendoza Line’. As Trump would say, “Yuh fahyuhd.” I do love this pic!
This vid focuses on the correct and safe way to remove GM so that harm will not be visited upon your person:
You could perform the ultimate destructive, feel good act upon this reputed biennial bully by adding it to your salad. Think how extra special the feeling would be of grinding it up in your mouth, then sending it down to the HCL in your stomach (NPNs might start feeling a little ‘frisky’ after 🙂 ).
This fruit is not especially flavorful…unless you are a bird. The Bradford Pear (shown at the very, very top of this page) sometimes blooms so early that it gets zapped by frost. Its perfect form doesn’t last into old age because it’s often “done broke up” by snow, ice, or wind. It has excellent fall color and, of course, pollinators do love it.
