[RWG] [APWG] "Native plant" definitions of government agencies?

[Craig Dremann]

Dear Phillip and All,

Thank you for your email.  

Here's what my comments about the various errors within the original
proposed USFS definition:

Andrew Kratz wrote:
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> Yes, "native plant" is defined as "all indigenous, terrestrial, and aquatic plant species that evolved naturally in an ecosystem." (FSM 2070.5)
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MY REPLY:

Unfortunately that definition isn't correct, and has a lot of errors.
  
If it was stated "plant species that evolved naturally within a
particular ecosystem" that might be more accurate, but there's not
enough nexus between the native plant that you are defining and the
ecosystem that it is a member of, or to be planted back into.  

However, there's a much larger error in the beginning, with the order of
the words and commas, because the definition and commas are separating
the plant species into three distinct groups, rather than the
terrestrial and aqautic being members of the larger group of
"indigenous".

You can see what I mean if you diagram out that sentence, like we used
to do in school.

It should probably read "The indigenous plant species of a particular
area, both aquatic and terrestrial, that evolved within and are members
of that local ecosystem."

Otherwise you could take Smooth Brome and accurately state that it is a
"terrestrial plant species that evolved naturally in an ecosystem".
Unfortunately, it doesn't happen to have evolved naturally in any
ecosystem in Colorado, it evolved naturally in some ecosystem in Europe.

------------------------------------

Andrew Kratz <mailto:akratz at fs.fed.us> replied to this email, with a
discussion why he thinks that the word "evolved" should be taken out,
and you could email him for his comments on the word "evolved".

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333