Jenny,
In this case you are exactly right. Perhaps you could marry some of them and
get their legal status resolved...
Actually the problem is that there are native strains of the common reed
Phragmites australis - the most important of this group as well as strains of
the same species introduced fro overseas.
Peat core analyses suggest that Phragmites australis has been an uncommon
member of mixed tidal wetland plant communities in North America for at least
3000 years (Niering et al. 1977, Orson et al. 1987). In the 19th but
particularly in the late 20th century, P. australis began invading fresh and
brackish wetlands in North America greatly expanding its range and abundance.
Mixed wetland plant communities are replaced by near monocultures of P.
australis, (Fig. 1) resulting in changed ecosystem processes and associated
detrimental impacts on native wildlife (Marks et al. 1994, Meyerson et al.
2000). http://www.invasiveplants.net/phragmites/natint.htm
It appears that the introduced strains from Europe are more aggressive and are
causing the problems within the wetlands. The indeterminate legal status has
to do with whether the plants could be treated as an invasive species or as a
native species because different regulations apply in each case and removal of
invasive plants in a wetland community would be considered and managed
differently than removing a native species from a wetland.
Ed
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science." - Albert Einstein
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 8:12 PM
Subject: [ENTS] Re: Invasive plants and trees
ENTS, Barry,
Are all species of Phragmites considered "immigrant species of indeterminate
legal status" ? ("ISOILS"...)
Is there a generally acknowledged amount of time an immigrant species has to
be in a particular part of the world until it can get its green card?
Did someone just answer this question recently and I missed it? I know the
subject must have come up a lot.
Jenny
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Caselli <[email protected]>
To: ENTS <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, Aug 9, 2009 4:44 pm
Subject: [ENTS] Invasive plants and trees
ENTS,
Recently, for no particular reason (I guess), I was thinking about the
non-natives and invasives that are here.
Right here on our property we have Tartarian Honeysuckle and Autumn
Olive. The funny thing is, back in the early 1970s at our old house in North
Jersey, my grandfather bought us a box of 50 Autumn Olive seedlings and we
planted them in a row between our property and the property to our right. That
row of bushes is still there and they are huge. But they grow wild all over
down here in South Jersey. I don't know when or how they got here. Some of the
abandoned vineyards of Renault Winery are filled up with Autumn Olive. Being
right next to the woods, I don't understand why Pitch Pine didn't take over in
those vineyards.
Anyway, other invasives around here are Wisteria (not sure which kind)
and Mimosa. But I like them both. Catalpa bignonioides seems to be everwhere.
It's definitely not native, but I wouldn't exactly call it invasive.
Then there are the invasives such as Multiflora Rose and and
Bittersweet. I have no idea if these are native here, but they are definitely
invasive. We have the Multiflora Rose on our property.
Finally the Phragmites- that's the worst of them all, in my opinion.
That stuff takes over wetlands and never goes away. It displaces all native
stuff and of course is ridiculously tall. There are hundreds of acres of it in
coastal and river marshes, as well as in other wetlands all over the state.
Fortunately they haven't taken over every single wetland in the state. If that
were the case we'd be in a sad state indeed.
Anyway this is all I can think of at the moment.
Barry
P.S.- you haven't heard much from me in the last few days because I'm
way behind on reading the group messages in my email, again. I belong to 4
groups of which I read the messages in my email. Right now I have 145 messages
to read to catch up.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org
Send email to [email protected]
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en
To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
