GIANT KNOTWEED

GIANT KNOTWEED...

...CREAMY WHITE FLOWERS, LARGE HEART SHAPED LEAVES

Friday, 9:00 AM. 60 degrees F at the ferry dock, 55 on the back porch.  Wind SW, calm with light gusts.  The sky is clear, the humidity 78%. the barometer 3.28" and falling, predicting unsettled weather next week.
   Giant knotweed, Polygonatum sachalinense, in the Polygonatum Family, is blooming.  It is quite attractive, and provides good erosion control, but is horribly invasive. It has large heart shaped leaves, and hollow stems and stem joints similar to bamboo.  I call it "the kudzu of the North."  Of Asian nativity, it was  introduced by the USDA.  Another, similar invader is the smaller-leaved Japanese knotweed.
   Observations: two migrating tundra swans were on the Bay at Ashland Wednesday, the first we've seen since spring.  And, we have seen few white water lilies or spatterdock bloom this year; I think the water has been too high.

OFF THE CUFF

   President Obama has invoked the 1906 Monuments Act to unilaterally create the largest marine sanctuary in the world, three times the size of California, despite opposition from Hawaiian fishermen and legislators.   

   Thus the executive overreach that has robbed the American West of economically and socially developable land spreads to the Pacific Ocean, even as fires enveloping the Western government lands again call into question the ability of Washington to manage the resources it already controls.

   Teddy Roosevelt began this well meaning but mostly destructive policy, and presidents since have routinely abused this privilege, usually for their own aggrandizement. The usual result is the theft of land, water, resources and opportunity from ordinary citizens and the states they live in.