Dear HCN,
In your 8/3/98 issue,
Robert Nold takes me to task over my 6/22/98 essay, “It Rhymes With
Scourge.”
Robert admits that donkeytail spurge
has “escaped from Boulder-area gardens and established itself in
some areas,” but is not a “fast-moving, aggressive invader.”
Boulder Mountain Parks would disagree; it lists donkeytail spurge
as an invasive exotic and has identified 15 serious outbreaks of it
in Boulder Mountain Park alone. How one chooses to characterize
this status is a matter of opinion.
Robert is
correct about the native status of the wild rose; there are several
native species generally represented by Rosa nutkana. The one I
referred to, introduced by European gardeners, is Rosa eglanteria,
the “Eglantine” of Shakespeare and now common on the West Slope of
the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada. I should have asserted that
“Even some species of wild rose were introduced by European
gardeners’ rather than simply state that wild rose was introduced
to North America. As far as thistles go, there are both native and
non-native species all over the continent, the most famous of which
(Russian thistle) is certainly an exotic.
Much to
my chagrin, Robert is entirely correct about the European origin of
dandelion, chicory and salsify. The ubiquitous presence of these
species in North America should, however, be a lesson in the
dangers of introducing exotic plants, not a reason to minimize
those issues. I should have accorded them an historic claim, not an
“ancient” one.
I appreciate Robert’s remarks but
find it difficult to agree with his conclusions; once again,
matters of degree often translate into matters of
opinion.
Evan
Cantor
Boulder,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline It still rhymes with scourge.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
