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.