00:00We're in Somerset, Maryland, learning about the plan for replacing Builder's special turf
00:06grass and invasive species with something much better.
00:10Let's take a minute and look at this landscape because it really does induce nausea.
00:13Yeah.
00:14I mean, it could be in front of a bank.
00:15It could be in front of a government building, a drugstore, strip mall parking lot.
00:20I mean, we've got our Berber Stenbergia, our Japanese Barbary.
00:23Boring, uninteresting, and invasive, so it kind of hit all three out of the park.
00:28This is an invasive species.
00:30Yeah.
00:31The birds eat it and then s*** it out and you get it popping up in the forest.
00:34Yeah, and our forests are loaded with it.
00:37At nearby Rock Creek Park, it doesn't take long to see how the invasive Japanese Barbary,
00:42Berberus Stenbergii, has begun to invade the understory of the native hardwood forest.
00:48We're in the understory of a forest that's dominated primarily by tulip trees, which
00:52are a native tree, Liridendron tulipfera, a member of the magnolia family, and the American
00:57beech, which is related to oaks.
00:59But within this wonderful native forest, we have quite a few invasives that are competing
01:05with the natives and hopefully will not overtake them.
01:08Yeah, here's that Berberus Stenbergia, Japanese Barbary.
01:12See that?
01:13You know why they plant it is because there's those cultivars that have the purple leaves.
01:18It causes interest.
01:20Very unique leaf color.
01:22Very attractive.
01:23Why isn't this one purple?
01:25Because it's growing in the understory and it's not, again, this is the cultivar versus
01:28wild species.
01:29So when those berries got pulled off by a bird, because birds are what disperse these,
01:35the seeds that sprout are not always true to form because you get phenotypic variations.
01:39Genetic variation, generation to generation.
01:41So that one that's sold as a cultivar, it's intentionally bred by people and selected
01:46for and probably cloned, but it produces fertile fruit.
01:49So that fertile fruit produces these plants that don't have that purple leaves.
01:53Now you've just got this ugly, spiny plant that spreads like wildfire throughout the
01:58forest and the entire eastern seaboard.
02:00It's really pretty unfortunate.
02:01Highly invasive.
02:02It's listed as a noxious plant.
02:04I'm surprised they're still able to sell it legally.
02:07And now that I'm looking, now that you're showing me it, I see it everywhere.
02:10It's everywhere.
02:12But there's English Ivy as well, which is another bad invasive.
02:15This one right here.
02:16And again, it's planted just whimsically because it's attractive.
02:20It makes you think of like a little quaint cottage.
02:22Makes me want to puke.
02:23And it's a really bad invasive.
02:25Really hard to get rid of.
02:26It's in the Aurelia family, Aureliaceae.
02:28Heterohelix, it's called.
02:30You're saying that this is, again, this is something that's planted in a landscape, planted
02:33horticulturally, then it escapes its captivity and gets out into...
02:37Right.
02:38And why was it planted?
02:39Because some jackass with no context for ecology thought it was attractive.
02:42I mean, it shouldn't even be being sold.
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