Today, is All Souls' Day, which followed All Saints' Day, which was preceded by All Hallow's Eve, aka. "Halloween."
About 50 years ago, Steve McQueen was doing battle (in a New Jersey diner?!) with something rather amorphous in his first film (or in one of his first films), The Blob. A couple of decades later, some enjoyed a film about a man--eating plant by the name of "Arthur;" but, unfortunately, it was just a film. If those things were for real, I'd love to send a few "gifts" to some politicians...
Unfortunately, there IS a plant that is devouring whole ecosystems in America, and now it's "eating" South Jersey...
Nature's Way, by Kevin Post
"A truly scary idea for Halloween: The plant that ate America"
"Here's an unusual idea for a costume: purple loosestrife.
It would strike fear into gardeners and fans of wildlife.
OK, maybe not as much as fright night's usual suspects --- vampires, zombies, werewolves.
But like them, purple loosestrife is something ordinary that we've transformed into a horror.
The first time people see expanses of this reddish purple spiked flower, they invariably think: How beautiful!
An it is, splashing color across thousands of acres of wetlands. It is like those sexy vampires in the movies, luring people to their destruction.
The blooms, waving atop woodly stalks 4 to 6 feet tall and lasting from June to August, seduced early American Colonists to bring purple loosstrife here from Europe.
Here there was nothing to eat it or stop it, and by the 1830s the hardy plant had spread along the New England coast. By 1900, it reached Illinois to the west and North Carolina to the south. Now it's in all of the lower 48 states except Florida.
It is a monster that crowds out native plants that provide food for wildlife, changing [a] balanced, diversified habitat into a monoculture of alien invaders.
Each mature purple loosestrife can produce as many as 30 flowering stems and from 2 to 3 millions [sic] seeds per year. It also spreads by root at a rate of a foot per year.
And it is still seducing us. Except in a handfull of states where it is banned, loosestrife is sold in some garden centers and seeds are sometimes included in mixed flower packets.
This terrible plant turned up recently in one of southern New Jersey's most valuable wildlife habitats: Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
'We just discovered purple loosestrife, just [sic] a few weeks ago, in a remote area of the refuge,' Brian Braudis, deputy project leader at the refuge, said last week. 'It's not pervasive yet.'
Braudis and refure manager Steve Atzert found it together, and immediately began thinking about how they could get rid of it before it spreads.
'We could just dig it out, but that's kind of labor intensive,' Braudis said. 'We don't have the staff for that kind of effort these days, and sometimes puple loosestrife is in wet areas we can't traverse.'
Another possibility is to apply an herbicide, usually in the fall when the plant is storing reserves for the winter.
Atzert and Braudis are pursuing another possibility[:] Unleashing on the loosestrife the specific insect enemies that keep it under control back in Europe.
Since the 1990s, federal and Cornell University researchers have been developing the use of two kinds of Galerucella beetle that eats loosestrife leaves and a Hylobius weevil that eats its roots.
They've been tried on stands of purple loosestrife in 16 northern states with promising, if slow, results.
So far, research suggests these bugs aren't likely to turn into the next man--enabled monsters. They pretty much confine their eating to the loosestrife.
Whether they're the answer at Forsythe is an open question. Permits an approvals would be required, and other methods may be more effective.
But it would be great if nature provided a remedy for this and other times we've meddled with nature and messed it up.
NATURE WORKSHOP
Nature columnist Kevin Post will lead a two--day workshop, "Thie Wisdom of Nature, from the practical to the ultimate," at 10 a.m. Wednesdays, Nov 8 and 15, at the Linwood Public Library. Donation to or new membership in Atlantic Audubon requested but not required. Must pre--register by e--mailing to
wisdomofnature@gmail.com or phoning 609.272.7250."
__________________________________
This article was published in the Press of Atlantic City on Tuesday, October 31st. It is one of ACP's own articles. Since they put Kevin Post's financial articles on their website, I do NOT understand why they did not put it on their website! Mutter, mutter, mutter...:words:
ebsi
About 50 years ago, Steve McQueen was doing battle (in a New Jersey diner?!) with something rather amorphous in his first film (or in one of his first films), The Blob. A couple of decades later, some enjoyed a film about a man--eating plant by the name of "Arthur;" but, unfortunately, it was just a film. If those things were for real, I'd love to send a few "gifts" to some politicians...
Unfortunately, there IS a plant that is devouring whole ecosystems in America, and now it's "eating" South Jersey...
Nature's Way, by Kevin Post
"A truly scary idea for Halloween: The plant that ate America"
"Here's an unusual idea for a costume: purple loosestrife.
It would strike fear into gardeners and fans of wildlife.
OK, maybe not as much as fright night's usual suspects --- vampires, zombies, werewolves.
But like them, purple loosestrife is something ordinary that we've transformed into a horror.
The first time people see expanses of this reddish purple spiked flower, they invariably think: How beautiful!
An it is, splashing color across thousands of acres of wetlands. It is like those sexy vampires in the movies, luring people to their destruction.
The blooms, waving atop woodly stalks 4 to 6 feet tall and lasting from June to August, seduced early American Colonists to bring purple loosstrife here from Europe.
Here there was nothing to eat it or stop it, and by the 1830s the hardy plant had spread along the New England coast. By 1900, it reached Illinois to the west and North Carolina to the south. Now it's in all of the lower 48 states except Florida.
It is a monster that crowds out native plants that provide food for wildlife, changing [a] balanced, diversified habitat into a monoculture of alien invaders.
Each mature purple loosestrife can produce as many as 30 flowering stems and from 2 to 3 millions [sic] seeds per year. It also spreads by root at a rate of a foot per year.
And it is still seducing us. Except in a handfull of states where it is banned, loosestrife is sold in some garden centers and seeds are sometimes included in mixed flower packets.
This terrible plant turned up recently in one of southern New Jersey's most valuable wildlife habitats: Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
'We just discovered purple loosestrife, just [sic] a few weeks ago, in a remote area of the refuge,' Brian Braudis, deputy project leader at the refuge, said last week. 'It's not pervasive yet.'
Braudis and refure manager Steve Atzert found it together, and immediately began thinking about how they could get rid of it before it spreads.
'We could just dig it out, but that's kind of labor intensive,' Braudis said. 'We don't have the staff for that kind of effort these days, and sometimes puple loosestrife is in wet areas we can't traverse.'
Another possibility is to apply an herbicide, usually in the fall when the plant is storing reserves for the winter.
Atzert and Braudis are pursuing another possibility[:] Unleashing on the loosestrife the specific insect enemies that keep it under control back in Europe.
Since the 1990s, federal and Cornell University researchers have been developing the use of two kinds of Galerucella beetle that eats loosestrife leaves and a Hylobius weevil that eats its roots.
They've been tried on stands of purple loosestrife in 16 northern states with promising, if slow, results.
So far, research suggests these bugs aren't likely to turn into the next man--enabled monsters. They pretty much confine their eating to the loosestrife.
Whether they're the answer at Forsythe is an open question. Permits an approvals would be required, and other methods may be more effective.
But it would be great if nature provided a remedy for this and other times we've meddled with nature and messed it up.
NATURE WORKSHOP
Nature columnist Kevin Post will lead a two--day workshop, "Thie Wisdom of Nature, from the practical to the ultimate," at 10 a.m. Wednesdays, Nov 8 and 15, at the Linwood Public Library. Donation to or new membership in Atlantic Audubon requested but not required. Must pre--register by e--mailing to
wisdomofnature@gmail.com or phoning 609.272.7250."
__________________________________
This article was published in the Press of Atlantic City on Tuesday, October 31st. It is one of ACP's own articles. Since they put Kevin Post's financial articles on their website, I do NOT understand why they did not put it on their website! Mutter, mutter, mutter...:words:
ebsi
