The times of our lives
Honeybees and wild pollinators too, no longer have the same number or variety of flowers available to them because we humans have tried to “neaten” our environments. We have, for example, planted huge expanses of crops without weedy, flower-filled borders or fencerows.

We maintain large green lawns free of any “weeds” such as clover or dandelions. Even our roadsides and parks reflect our desire to keep things neat and weed-free. But to bees and other pollinators, green lawns look like deserts.

The diets of honeybees that pollinate large acreages of one crop may lack important nutrients, compared with those of pollinators that feed from multiple sources, as would be typical of the natural environment.

From “Solving the Mystery of the Vanishing Bees,” by Diane Cox-Foster and Dennis vanEngelsdorp, in Scientific American Magazine, March 30, 2009.

Ecoregional Guides of Plants for Pollinators
The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign has put online the first of their series of ecoregional guides (using Bailey’s Ecoregions) on plants for pollinators. www.pollinator.org/guides.htm.

City of Chicago on the ‘banned wagon’ – invasives that is
The City of Chicago, April 2009, banned fourteen plants as “invasive species” that are a threat to the sustainability of natural areas.

This is in addition to the thirteen plants that were banned by similar legislation, in 2007, that concentrated on aquatic invasive plant species.

The City Department of Environment will now prosecute sellers and gardeners alike who import, sell, or grow listed non-native plants. Businesses caught selling these invasive species in Chicago face a fine of between one thousand and five thousand dollars. A private grower can be charged between one hundred and five hundred dollars.

Mistaken identity?
Invasive Plants and their Native Look-alikes: An Identification Guide for the Mid-Atlantic. Put together by the New York Botanical Gardens, this publication is a full-color, sixty-two-page booklet. The purpose of the work is to facilitate correct identification of confusingly similar invasive and native plant species. Targeted at land managers, gardeners, conservationists, and all others interested in plants, this booklet covers over twenty invasive species and their native look-alikes.

Higher quality 8 mg file:
www.nybg.org/files/scientists/rnaczi/Mistaken_Identity_Final.pdf.

Lower quality 2 mg file for dial-up connections:
www.nj.nrcs.usda.gov/documents/Mistaken_Identity.pdf.

Maryann is Editor of the Wild Ones Journal, and comes to the position with an extensive background in environmental matters of all kinds.

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