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RE: our lords candle/pampas

It is bothering me that 'Our Lord's Candle' (Yucca whipplei) and pampas
grass are getting confused.  Yucca whipplei is a California native, and
important plant in chapparel.  I have see it spilling down dry slopes as
Barry described -in Central California, I don't know how far north it goes.
It is available at native plant nurseries.  Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Nursery has it and probably the Native Plant Society.  It is particularly
beautiful from a distance, as it indeed does look like huge candles on the
hills.

Pampas grass on the other hand is bad, bad, bad - as you have described.

Jane Reese
Santa Barbara, California

>Yes Robert those claims could well be true
>We have a serious problem with Cortaderia selloana in our swamps and
>wetlands in
>Western Australia and it IS SEEDING!  We collected seed and germinated
>it.
>For years we had never seen seedlings just regrowth from dumped plants
>people took down to the
>bush and dumped.  Two or three years ago we heard claims that pampas was
>spreading around Albany
>and it was seedlings!  and they were!
>Since then we have found many locations with plants with the male
>flowers where previously there were only the female flowers evident,
>although these plants are more often smaller and runtier.
>
>Seed production is phenomenal on the larger plants.
>Pampas is also a real problem in New Zealand where forest workers will
>not work in some sections as they get cut to pieces by the sharp
>serrated leaves, can't blame them!
>
>Cheers, Rod
>Rod Randall
>Weed Risk Assessment
>Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia
>Home Page  http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/Weedsci.htm
>
>             "I weed..."
>
>> ----------
>> From: 	Robert Crane
>> Reply To: 	rcrane2@ix.netcom.com
>> Sent: 	Thursday, 25 December 1997 7:49 AM
>> To: 	medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
>> Subject: 	Re: our lords candle
>>
>> Barry - re your sightings of "Our lords candle" at Big Sur
>>
>> I also noticed a few years ago at Big Sur all over the dry
>> mountain sides as you describe grey green stiff clumps of grass
>> with "spectacular" flowers but it was Pampas Grass, not a Yucca.
>> Could you have been seeing Cortaderia jubata (or less likely, C.
>> selloana), both listed as invasive weeds by the California
>> Exotic Pest Plant Council.   They are natives of Argentina.
>> Living in the Tamaulipan plain of South Texas, Yuccas we have
>> and it is no yucca. Yucki maybe.  Also a very big problem in
>> Australia, this plant.  Some people claim C. selloana won't escape
>> but there are claims it is self-seeding in Northern Cal.
>> Check out www.nps.gov/redw/pampas.htm for pic and info.
>>


_______________________________________________________________________

Jane Reese
E-mail:  jreese@silcom.com
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