"With more submerged acreage than Minnesota, Texas has just 166 bodies of water commonly considered lakes. All but one of them, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, are artificial reservoirs, most created in the 1950s to fend off drought.
Now that one, Caddo Lake, a mystical preserve of centuries-old mossy cypress breaks, teeming fisheries and waterfowl habitats, is under siege by a fast-spreading, Velcro-like aquatic fern, Salvinia molesta, also known as Giant Salvinia."
Pictures at the link.
4 comments:
Wow....generally, I feel like a lot of the rants about "invasive plants" are just a tad overblown, but not THIS one! A plant that doubles in size in 2-4 DAYS?! Now THAT'S a problem!
Hi Chuck,
I just heard about this from my husband and it's pretty creepy. Our Austin area lakes are all reservoirs - here it's a constant fight with another invasive plant called Hydrilla, once a big aquarium favorite.
We've haven't yet visited the part of Texas around Caddo Lake - maybe someday.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
The pictures in the New York Times make the Caddo Lake area look beautiful--more like Louisiana to me than Texas, but of course the two share a long border.
molesta indeed. yikes.
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