Re: Meadow sage as a weed in Washington state
- Subject: Re: Meadow sage as a weed in Washington state
- From: T* &* M* R*
- Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 11:34:40 +1200
"Richard F. Dufresne" wrote:
>
> I just did a search in Google for Salvia + "noxious weed" and came up with
> this site:
>
> http://www.wa.gov/agr/weedboard/weed_info/meadowclary.html
>
> There are 253 hits on this topic. This one was enough.
>
> This bulletin seems to me to be alarmist even for S. sclarea. The bulletin
> definitely reflects and promotes ignorance: ...
> If this paucity of data is going to result in banning these plants across
> ALL of the United States, we will have a lot of trouble. I was told that
> during a conference, Faith Campbell claimed it is better to err on the side
> of caution and ban a plant for the whole country if it shows bad behavior in
> one section.
Richard
I would just like to comment unfavourably on the ignorance shown in the
pronouncement by Faith Campbell. There is no doubt at all that one needs
to discriminate between weeds which are noxious in any climate within a
country (I think the Convolvulus species recently discussed on this list
come close to this category) and those which are problems only in
certain conditions.
If one looks at the NZ lists of plants which are outlawed in Auckland
for instance (at the warm end of the country), quite a few of these are
not invasive around the cooler Wellington district where I live, and
cannot even grow at all in the still cooler parts of South Island. To
expend energy and money eliminating all of the Auckland list throughout
the country would be an exercise in futility, but it is really necessary
to carefully discriminate or serious problems can arise. A good working
knowledge of botany would seem a prerequisite for making meaningful
decisions in particualr cases.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand, SW Pacific. 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Time
