wrote in message ...
Cerumen wrote:

"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...
Yet the story has spread. It has appeared in at least two _Government_
press releases and as even been copied by the BBC.

But who believes Government press releases, especially about weeds of
mass destruction?

Or even about the mass destruction of weeds? Anyway somebody leaves a
horse run free and it breaks into my land and eats the ragwort or indeed
nibbles on the Yew, foxgloves, belladonna or any other toxic plants and
trees they get what they deserve?

The issue is more that when ragwort produces seed that seed travels
over a huge area and there are tens of thousands of viable ragwort
seeds produced by a single plant. If you're ragwort was guaranteed not
to spread beyond your garden owners of grazing animals wouldn't be so
worried about it.

Actually many many plants produce seeds like this. On average in the
long term one plant will produce only one offspring.

Several studes have been carried out on ragwort. The most
comprehensive was carried out by scientists at Oregon State University
and published by The Ecological Society of America in their respected
scientific journal Ecology. It showed that, when tested in a variety
of conditions, 31% of the seeds traveled only 1 metre, 89% of them 5
metres or less and none were collected more than 14 metres from the
source. The study involved studying the dispersal of over fifty three
thousand individual seeds.


Neil Jones- http://www.butterflyguy.com/
"At some point I had to stand up and be counted. Who speaks for the
butterflies?" Andrew Lees - The quotation on his memorial at Crymlyn
Bog National Nature Reserve