Fragments From Floyd

I had a few minutes on Saturday to swing over to the Blue Ridge Parkway--a route that was once my way to work and town. I got to know it well those two years we lived on Walnut Knob, and was able to see the thirteen mile stretch of the 400 mile parkway change through the seasons. I remember lamenting how much of the road's right-of-way had been taken over by Tree of Heaven, an oriental invasive crowding out native trees until there is ijn places nothing but an unbroken stand of this unlovely tree.

In just the short while since we drove the parkway regularly, it has been invaded by yet another oriental import: Oriental Bittersweet. I was shocked to see its orange fruits hanging in bush after shrub after tree for miles of the Scenic Hiway. Once established, the vine can grow until it's trunk is four inches thick, and it is almost impossible to eradicate. Kudzu with fancy fruits.

Here's one more instance where a 'good idea' horticulturally (useful in dried arrangements) has turned out to be a bad idea, environmentally. This plant was imported by somebody who like its looks. (Kudzu was imported ostensibly as fodder for cattle; multiflora rose as a 'living fence.') And it has now joined the list of 'invasive plants' defined as follows:

"Plants that have, or are likely to spread into native or minimally managed plant systems, and cause economic or environmental harm by developing self-sustaining populations and becoming dominant or disruptive to those systems".

A mere inconvenience, a minor cosmetic blemish on the countryside where it makes no difference, you might say. Well, I'll post later this week about an 'invasive' that may be changing the fate of the planet. Stay tuned!