[APWG] Native "invaders"? No, just survivors.

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

Any plant or animal or human that was here in 1491 is native.   If they
expand their ranges or colonize areas where they did not exist in 1491,
they are not invasive, but just survivors.

We have a situation in the high elevation Rockies, in the 1880s, sheep and
cattle were shipped by railroads to graze those herbaceous perennial
ecosystems, that contained over 100 species.  By the early 1900s, only one
species was left, the tarweeds.  And the new exotic invasive humans from
Europe could not get rid of it, so they listed it as a noxious invasive
weed.

The same thing happened to the Native American sweetgrass (Hierochloe)
fields in Ohio in the late 1800s.  Sweetgrass was cultivated around Indian
villages for use as basket material and sacred ceremonies, and when the
Europeans came to plow up the Indian fields, the sweetgrass held on, and
that plant was declared an invasive and noxious weed, because of its
ability to survive the invasive people’s attempt to destroy them.

Any time I see some of these survivors, like a stand of wildflowers here
in California, or some native bunchgrasses, I consider them sacred,
because they have been able to survive all that us exotic, invasive people
and our exotic domesticated animals, have been able to dish out to
exterminate them.

Long live the invasive native plants, the native animals and the native
humans-- may they survive and find a place to live, even if it is not
their original 1491 locations.

I did a ceramic art piece, that you can see at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/butterfly.jpg.  The title of the piece is "The
Mojave life forms that have withstood all we have dished out to destroy
them" with a Painted Lady butterfly, landing on an Indian Ricegrass plant
(Oryzopsis  hymenoides).

I have also been doing some new paintings about exotic plants and some of
our local native plants, at http://www.ecoseeds.com/art2.html.

I am especially fond of “MURDER AT JASPER RIDGE and BUTTERFLY X...” and
"The FIVE BILLION BUNCHGRASS SPIRITS SCREAM when the FOUR ANNUAL WEED
GRASS HORSEMEN of the California native grassland apocalypse appear...”

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333