[Pollinator] [EXTERNAL] Standing Up for Native Thistles

[Droege, Sam]

Thistles are a favorite of mine.

And

It would be good to follow this article up with another blog post about the set of bees that are specialists on thistles...and...I imagine a whole set of other insects.

sam

A Pasture Poem

This upstart thistle
Is young and touchy; it is
All barb and bristle,

Threatening to wield
Its green, jagged armament
Against the whole field.

Butterflies will dare
Nonetheless to lay their eggs
In that angle where

The leaf meets the stem,
So that ants or browsing cows
Cannot trouble them.

Summer will grow old
As will the thistle, letting
A clenched bloom unfold

To which the small hum
Of bee wings and the flash of
Goldfinch wings will come,

Till its purple crown
Blanches, and the breezes strew
The whole field with down.

- Richard Wilbur
________________________________
From: Pollinator <pollinator-bounces+sdroege=usgs.gov at lists.sonic.net> on behalf of Matthew Shepherd <matthew.shepherd at xerces.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2020 3:34 PM
To: pollinator at lists.sonic.net <pollinator at lists.sonic.net>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Pollinator] Standing Up for Native Thistles




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The Xerces Society doesn’t only stand up for underappreciated animals, but also plants!



Native thistles play an important role in our ecosystems and yet, are frequently treated as weeds alongside their nonnative relatives. They occur in a broad range of habitats—pasture grasslands, native prairie remnants, roadsides, idle fields, open woodlands, savannas, and wetlands—and their seeds help sustain enormous flocks of songbirds. The nectar and pollen of these plants draw countless flower visitors, including the federally endangered rusty patched bumble bee. Native thistles also fill an important bloom gap in late-summer and fall, when other flowers may not be in bloom, helping to fuel the monarch migration.



In late 2018, we had an opportunity to give native thistles a boost in Iowa. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship opened a short window for public comment about the state code that shapes the management of noxious weeds—so we grabbed it and submitted a letter requesting that native thistles be removed from the list of Class B noxious weeds for control and that the only thistles included were nonnative species. Six months later we heard that the weed laws had been rewritten!



Read more in this article on our blog: Standing Up for Native Thistles, by Sarah Nizzi, one of our Farm Bill Pollinator Conservation Planners & NRCS Partner Biologists.

https://xerces.org/blog/standing-up-for-native-thistles





----------

Matthew Shepherd

Director of Communications & Outreach

he/him/his



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Protecting the Life That Sustains Us



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