Botany Photo of the Day

I have seen that, or something that looks identical to it in my photos, on Flickr at one of the ponds along the Burnaby foreshore, just across the road from Glenlyon Industrial Park.

If it is M. aquaticum, what can/should be done about it?

That's a great picture of milfoil. In the Adirondacks it is a bad guy and the lake where we have a cottage is patrolled yearly for signs of it. It has to be removed by hand, because any small parts that get chopped off will root themselves. Boat engines chop them up and cause new growth. But it sure is aesthetically pleasing..and I've heard it makes great compost.

I really love this waterplant. Which I always call Parrot's Feather and my husband loves it because it looks like Christmas Trees.
I live in Boise, Idaho and have more of a problem of the plant not coming back in my fish pond.

I usually float it in the fish pond or plant it in a pot of soil and put it in the fish pond.

I did notice traveling to Ten Mile Lake in Oregon one summer, that the lake was full of it, well more the canal that connects the lake.
Very nice picture.

Very nice picture! We have this species in at least some places in southern California, but I have no idea how extensive it has become. We also have the Siberian milfoil, M. sibirica, which I encountered for the first time last year at the edge of a small lake near Idyllwild in the San Jacintos. It is a very different looking critter. You can see my page for that at: http://www.calflora.net/bloomingplants/siberianmilfoil.html

Susannah, that does look like it. I've done a bit of research about it, but I can't find a direct answer to your question, so I've asked on the invasive plants forum.

I am outraged that the Washington website which dares to include in its name eco- actually advises use of herbicides and worse actually mentions the name of that sinistar gangster company the cause of so much suffering grief destruction as Dow Chemicals and now Monsanto which is not only responsible for so much devastation and killing worldwide and even in Canada with the spraying of Agent orange Agent blue. They even dare to mention 24D and other carcinogenic mutagenic herbicides which are ecologically destructive and disease producing and lethal to all plants animals amd humans.
So dont fall for the apparent sham pseudoscience of these degenerates, appearing to be a government organisation is unforetunately not a gurantee of any integrity or scientific validity whatsoever.

Before you became outraged did you read the whole thing?

"Although parrot feather is considered by some to be susceptible to herbicides, it is difficult to achieve complete control. The emergent stems and leaves have a thick waxy cuticle and it requires a wetting agent to penetrate this cuticle. Often the weight of the spray will cause the emergent vegetation to collapse into the water where the herbicide is washed off before it can be translocated throughout the plant....

In actual practice, the Longview diking district (and others) report little success with using herbicides to control parrot feather. Glyphosate causes the emergent vegetation to turn black but within two weeks the plants have recovered. An experimental fall application of triclopyr to parrot feather also proved to be ineffective. Of the above herbicides, endothall, glyphosate, 2,4-D, and copper are permitted for aquatic use in Washington waters, but copper is generally permitted only as an algicide"

Today's photograph is a lovely picture.
I did think invasive and use all links to find out more.
Thank you,
Margaret-Rae

I sure did read precisely the paragraphs you requoted. What I missed was that actually they admit that their poisons are useless ineffective even in controlling let alone wiping out the intended targeted victim. This must be one of the most ludicrous selfdefeating admission of malice and incompetence as well as innefectuality rolled into one.
From now on I suggest we adopt this plant as the mascot of the environmental movement. Hurray it defeated Mansanto Dow chemicals
and the government of Washington State.
Can't be all bad.
This little plant is smarter than the Canadian and Sakatchewan Governments as they couldnt defeat Monsanto.

Thank you, Daniel. I followed your link, and the ones arising from that; I think it is, indeed, M. aquaticum. Sad.

I wrote about it on my blog, in Like tiny Christmas trees.

That's all I can think of to do, at the moment.