Thursday, June 01, 2006

The long gray line

During my morning run with my trusty Motorola RAZR phone, I came across these garbage bags in the Linne Woods Forest Preserve near my home in Morton Grove, IL.

What is going on?

Well, those bags are filled with garlic mustard, an invasive weed that crowds out native tree species species.

Volunteers throughout Cook County pull weeds by hand so young trees have the space to grow.

From the Harvard Gazette via the Sisu blog:

The tree-stifling alien, garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), first introduced into the United States in the 1860s, has since spread to Canada and 30 states in the East and Midwest, with recent sightings as far west as Oregon.


It's a tough fight. Near those trash bags, I took a picture of an overlooked--or recently sprouted--garlic mustard plant.

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