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Hi David M & All, June 20, 2014
Thanks for this example.
There are no doubt several forces at work, that tend to increase the
rate of spread or apparently change the behavior of many plants (e.g
Phragmites) but I suspect a major one to be the post 1950s huge increase in
area and continuity of disturbed and often wet habitat associated with the
100-series highways or equivalent and explosion of suburbia, along with the
dramatic increase in size, units and mobility of earth-moving equipment. ATV
traffic, use of rotary mowers on highway ditches/embankments and trucking
yard waste to remote waste centers likely contributes also.
Thus one finds e.g. an isolated 2-dm wide clump of Labrador Tea (Ledum
groenlandicum) on a powerline about 3 km away from the nearest natural
habitat. And a previously rare native plant (Equisetum variegatum) has
increasingly in recent decades started acting like a common introduced weed
of disturbed habitats.
Yours truly, Dave Webster, Kentville
From: David McCorquodale
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Glossy Buckthorn
There is another example of a plant considered to be invasive being brought
to Nova Scotia hundreds of years ago, and then causing problems from a more
recent introduction.
Purple Loosestrife was used medicinally at Fortress of Louisbourg during the
early 1700s. Some plants persisted into the late 1800s when John Macoun saw
it and recorded it.
However, it appears to have died out before Purple Loosestrife arrived on
Cape Breton from mainland Nova Scotia and further west in the late 1900s.
Pixie Williams did the investigative work to document this while completing
her MSc on the flora of Louisbourg.
David McCorquodale, Georges River, NS
David McCorquodale
Georges River, NS
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