Beauty, Unjustly Condemned

By Charles Hammer

It is beautiful. It’s the Marilyn Monroe, the Princess Diana, the Beyonce of wildflowers—and so easy to cultivate. I speak of the lovely waterside Purple Loosestrife, lythrum salicaria, which can grow five feet tall and adorns itself with yard-long spires of color.

You may have seen this perennial in public television shows about English castles or near lakeside mansions in those productions of Jane Austen classics like “Pride and Prejudice.”

But Purple Loosestrife is condemned in my home state, Kansas—illegal to sell or even plant here since 2002. Condemned as well in most of the United States as a “Beautiful Killer,” and one of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of 100 World’s Worst Invasive Species.

I disagree with this death sentence on a great wildflower. That is because I know what I’ve seen in my long life as a gardener. I am 86 years old. Fifty-four years ago I planted two cultivated varieties, lythrum Morden’s Gleam and Morden’s Pink, on shorelines of two lakes at my Kansas homes association.

All these years later, with virtually no effort made to suppress the plant, lythrum brings June-September color to less than 5 percent of our shorelines. Purple Loosestrife seldom survives dry summers away from the lakes here without artificial watering. So during bloom season I have followed the creek below our lakes down toward the Kansas river searching for seedstarted plants and found not one.

It is said by some that these two fancy varieties do not set seed like wild Loosestrife, and—quite the contrary by others—that planting fancy varieties is no protection against rampant intercrossing between the types and huge seed production. I will let the two viewpoints argue those opposing views between themselves.

I concede that the loosestrife may be a problem in bogs of Canada and the Great Lakes region—not that I have seen it. But killing off this plant in the lower Midwest will do nothing to solve the problem on northern bogs.

I have a dozen times navigated Missouri spring-fed rivers in a canoe, for 20 years annually hiked the Flint Hills prairies of Kansas, traveled widely by car through the Midwest. Never have I seen a place where lythrum has become a plague. A young Kansas state official told me the absence of such problems results from their state control efforts starting in 2002 (a few years after he was born, I suspect). Nonsense. I saw no problem in the previous century and see none now. I speak with the common sense of long experience.

This is supported by a scientific paper in the journal Biological Invasions researched by biologist Dr. Claude Lavoie, department head of the Graduate School of Regional Planning and Development at Laval University in Canada. He said the statement that Purple Loosestrife “has large negative impacts on wetlands is probably exaggerated.”

“Unfortunately, nobody took time to investigate those wetlands before initiating a coast-to-coast campaign against Purple Loosestrife…” Dr. Lavoie wrote. “Studies on St. Lawrence River wetlands may have delayed control programs by some years, but where was the emergency considering that the plant had already been present in North America for 150 years? Such studies would have probably indicated that the situation was much less problematic than suspected.”

He said the most common accusation that purple loosestrife crowds out native plants and forms a monoculture “is controversial and has not been observed in nature (with maybe one exception).” He said there is evidence that lythrum may help control two far more invasive plants, flowering rush and reed canary grass.

Lavoie finds no evidence that Purple Loosestrife “kills wetlands or creates biological deserts,” and “there are no published studies [in peer-reviewed journals] demonstrating that purple loosestrife has an impact on waterfowl or fishes.” It does happen to be a source of nectar and pollen for bees.

Meanwhile, he wrote, the press has painted an exaggerated story of Purple Loosestrife causing severe habitat decline. Lavoie reviewed 902 articles about the plant from 1982 through 2008. Common descriptions of the plant were Invader, Menace, Plague, Killer, and Scourge. Lavoie blames the public misperception largely on a few researchers who have emphasized the negative impacts of Purple-Loosestrife without solid scientific support.

Because Purple Loosestrife is among those 100 Worst Species, I couldn’t resist searching that list for lonicera maackii, Asian Amur bush honeysuckle. This monster shrub leafs out early in spring and sheds its leaves late in fall, thus shading out all competition. It’s widespread across America and terrible along woodland trails in Johnson County near my home. It forms dense hedges 15 feet high that crowd out native plants like redbud, grey dogwood, American buckeye and pawpaw. It is the Big Bad Wolf set against lythrum’s Red Riding Hood. Yet, though it’s discouraged in most of America, bush honeysuckle didn’t make that list of 100 evil species.

It is ironic that state wildlife agencies often include in their websites photos showing many dead-level acres of stunning Purple Loosestrife in full bloom, thus proving—they think—what a ravenous beast this plant is. And, I think, what homeowner living beside such a spectacle would not prefer this radiant color to the bleak brown bog it conceals?

Which comes around to a point: after you kill out the invader— whether loosestrife or bush honeysuckle—how do you fill that spot? With native plants, the authorities tell us. So my homes association spent $700 buying a huge assortment of two-inch plant plugs featuring native wildflowers and sedges. Our volunteer gardeners found plenty of room between existing vegetation and planted them.

The following year I saw some spikes of Cardinal Flower, lobelia cardinalis—lovely if frail. One year later that whole contingent of plants simply failed to reappear.

Photos courtesy of Charles Hammer.

Shimmering reflections of Purple Loosestrife and the real thing paint a waterside composition on the pond near my Kansas home.

Imported from Europe 150 years ago, Purple Loosestrife flowers among limestone rip-rap bracing the dam of the lake where I live.

That’s no argument against native plants. They are wonderful put in at the right place at the right time.

As is lythrum salicaria. In Kansas we cannot move it legally from one place to another.

But where I planted it in 1966— and with a little spread—Purple Loosestrife soldiers on, more beautiful every year.

An avid old guy gardener, Charles Hammer is somewhat cross that a gloriously beautiful plant has been condemned. Mr. Hammer is a long-ago KC Star reporter, still writing a monthly column for Star 913.

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Judy Penner, Director/Rosarian of Loose Park & Laura Conyers Smith Rose Garden will present the 2021 Rose Demonstration virtually again this year. Tips on how to plant a bare root rose, how to prune roses for the spring will be demonstrated. The video will be on YouTube just go to Judy Penner, available 3/21.