Subject: Re: Demise of natural Cattails?
From: William D Hulet <whulet@uoguelph.ca>
Organization: University of Guelph
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 10:35:32 -0400
Message-ID: <MOD$970831.15104@rec.gardens.ecosystems>
References: <MOD$970830.8016@rec.gardens.ecosystems>



On Sat, 30 Aug 1997 OperaGoer@webtv.net wrote:

>
> There has been recent press concerning the weed from a
> european-introduction that prefers the low ditches and watery areas but,
> while it has lavender blossoms and is attractive, it is very rapidly
> replacing our natural cattails.
> what possible consequence may this have on our delicate eco-system? What
> birds, insects, animals, etc., depend upon these for part/all of their
> existence?

If you mean purple loosestrife, it is a scary thing to watch. It
had/has totally over-run a lot of wetlands here in Southern Ontario. It's
sort of like the "red weed" from H.G. Well's _War of the Worlds_. It
produces millions of seeds per plant and can't be hand eradicated since
the roots just fragment when you try to pull it out.

The local university's bio-control labratory has a program where
local enviro-types can pick up some European beetles that eat the stuff in
exchange for doing some simple records keeping. The project has
successfully started to knock the plant down to where it's no longer a
pest in our geographic local. But there's a bit of controversy about
whether we should be bringing another exotic to deal with the first one.

I suspect that part of the anxiety about loosestrife is its
extreme visibility. If it didn't convert wetlands into bright pink
blotches, it might not have people so pumped up. (One of the scientists
involved told me that he's seen another exotic---"yellow canal grass"---
filling in some of the void left by the loose strife. As he said "one
problem at a time".)