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The U.S. Forest Service - which offers a list of invasive online at www.fs.fed.us/ database/feis/plants/weed/wee dpage.html - has also published a photo-filled guide to the most common ones that are threatening native forests, “Non-native Invasive Plants of Southern Forests: A Field Guide to Identification and •* Control” by James H. Miller. ** In the introduction, Miller explains that “Invasive non[J native plants infest under and •* beside forest canopies and 3 occupy small forest openings, 3 increasingly eroding forest 3 productivity, hindering forest use and management activities and degrading diversity and wildlife habitat.”
These dangers can also be applied to our other native ecosystems, including streams, ponds, wetlands and meadows.
If you live in Rappahannock County, you’re probably aware of some of these aliens - autumn olive, ailanthus (“Tree of Heaven”), multiflora rose, Japanese stilt grass, Johnson grass, Asian cattail, mile-aminute, Japanese honeysuckle - and so many more.
While non-natives won’t destroy the planet, a less biodiverjse planet is a less safe planet for all of us who live on it. When one species - such as a plant that provides us with food - fails, biodiversity offers a safety net with other species that can provide similar resources.
Besides, how many of us in Virginia would be happy to see nur dogwoods and redbud replaced by ailanthus or our native wildflowers replaced by garlic mustard? Our sense of place, especially in Rappahannock County, is to a great extent defined by the species who not only share this beautiful landscape but actually ere ate it.
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