365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Moth Mullein, Verbascum Blattaria
Day 293: Moth Mullein is an introduced species, but is not on the "hit list" of invasives, so I did not feel compelled to pull it up when I found it growing on my Nisqually Land Trust beat. To be fair, it's near the road edge. Had I found it further onto the property, I would have uprooted it. In the four or five years I've been patrolling the area, I have never observed it attempting to spread. Like many species of "wild" flower, it undoubtedly escaped from a pioneer's garden where it may have been planted deliberately as a memory of a former home.
Here you have an argument I have presented to many people. It is human nature to transport things from one location to another, whether it's a favourite plant, a piece of rock or a handful of seashells which might some day confound the archaeologist who unearths them in North Dakota. The act of carrying seeds from one place to another is the way of Man, and therefore could be defined as a valid mode of transport (speaking botanically), just as seeds are borne on the wind, in water or caught in the fur of animals. Take this line of thought one step further, and it suggests that we are interfering with Nature by forbidding transport of botanical materials across political boundaries.
Don't take me too seriously here. I use the same argument for feeding birds. It's human nature. While in the extreme, either practice can disrupt an ecosystem, but if practiced in moderation, it all balances out.
Labels:
Moth Mullein,
NLT,
nonnative,
Ohop Valley,
Verbascum blattaria
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