So your driving down a country road, route, or stretch of highway and notice huge areas of purple wildflowers. You point it out to everyone else in your vehicle, you may stop for a 'photo op', or you may want to get out to wander through them to find a butterfly or maybe get lucky enough to see a couple of hummingbirds. As you are pondering the beauty of the field, you notice that in this huge area of flowers there is nothing else growing.....no grasses, no weeds, no plants, not even a sapling tree. Now you are wondering if this field was purposely cultivated to grow these flowers....yikes, maybe we're trespassing!

Well you may be trespassing, but don't worry about ruining the flowers or damaging a purposeful crop. What you are looking at is called Purple Loosestrife. Native to many countries around the world like Great Britain, Russia, Japan, and India, Purple Loosestrife now resides in every state in the US except Florida. It was imported into the US via the Northeast in the 19th century for medical and decorative purposes. It is still sold in all the states except 3 as a garden flower. The states that have prohibited its sale are Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

When the plant matures, it can have as many as 50 stems rising from a single stalk, all containing the purple flower and rising to as tall as 10 feet high. Each flower will have from 5 to 7 pedals in the shape of a heart or rounded at the base. The plant will flower from June to September which gives it plenty of time to produce large quantities of seeds. Like all flowers, it requires pollination by insects. One plant is capable of producing 2-3 million seeds per year.

So what's the big deal? It sounds like a great way to beautify fields and roadsides, right? Wrong. Because of the amount of seed that these plants produce, it readily adapts to both natural and man made wetlands, fields, roadside ditches, and meadows. As it spreads, it chokes out native natural grasses and other native flowering plants that provide a higher source of nutrition for wildlife and waterfowl. It is even choking out some federally endangered orchids. Most of all it is eliminating natural habitat for waterfowl.

Ok, now that we know it is a problem, how are the authorities handling it? Actually, everyone can help. I have seen home flower gardens with Purple Loosestrife in them. That solution is obvious. Pull it out and replace it with a different type of perennial flower. If you feel the need to take your conservation efforts a step further, the next time you are walking through a small patch of it, pull it out. Small areas can be eliminated before it gets out of hand by that method. For older plants and areas that have been overrun, there are a few federally initiated procedures that are being implemented. Biological control is the best method for the long term solution. Starting in 1997, 3 insect species from Europe have been approved for use to control the plant. These insects are the root-mining weevil, and two species Galerucella beetle which are leaf eaters. There are two species of flower eating beetles that are currently under investigation as well. The Galerucella beetles have been released in 16 states from Oregon to New York. Although these beetles have been occasionally seen feeding on native plant life, the US Department of Agriculture says the potential for a destructive impact to species other then Purple Loosetrife is low.