Showing posts with label non-native. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-native. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Some late summer events and anniversaries

More items will be added during coming weeks.

Emerald ash borers found in Chatham County

Emerald ash borers are now known to be in Chatham County, and have already spread through Durham, Orange, Wake, and other counties.  According to an article in the Chatham News and Record, the NC Forest Service detected the beetle through trapping along Wilkinson Creek south of Chapel Hill ( www.chathamnewsrecord.com/stories/invasive-emerald-ash-borer-makes-its-way-into-chatham,2622 ).  The NCFS created a new map in June showing where these East Asian beetles have been found, though they have probably spread further ( www.ncforestservice.gov/forest_health/fh_maps.htm ).  I have wondered if I am starting to see the effects in Durham, but I'm not certain (and I'm watching for laurel wilt, but so far it has only been found at the southeast corner of the state).  Their larvae bore in living ash trees and possibly related fringetrees, and since they are not native to North America and therefore have few natural controls they become so numerous that they kill trees above a certain size.  The many species of ash and one fringetree are ecologically and culturally important and common trees (people also plant Chinese fringetrees, and I think there are some at UNC).  It is possible to treat individual trees with (controversial) insecticides and various Asian parasitoid wasps are being released to control the beetles, and some trees might be able to survive.  On the other hand, it seems like the beetles could ultimately kill all or almost all ash trees where they spread (and ash seeds don't stay viable long enough to replenish the population later), and there is little to stop them (and people transport wood with grubs, etc. so they are spreading faster than they should naturally).  Studies show that it is a waste of money to preemptively cut ash and what if a tree that would have withstood the onslaught is cut, so I urge people not to kill healthy trees.  For more information see:  durhamspark.blogspot.com/2016/04/emerald-ash-borer-unnecessary.html
Here is a Twitter account that links the latest news on EAB in North America:  twitter.com/emeraldashborer (be warned there might be a virus at the Yadkin Ripple link).

Demand an End to War:  Rage Against the War Machine (more details below, October 11 - 12)

The next planning call will be August 4th at 3pm EST, 2pm CST, and 12pm PST:  marchonpentagon.com/rage-against-the-war-machine-call-sunday-august-4/

Support the Venezuela Embassy Protectors

The Embassy Protectors, Americans who occupied Venezuela's embassy in Washington with the permission of the elected Maduro administration, to prevent the US government and coup supporters from seizing the building, were removed by the US and now face trials on various charges, and some could be imprisoned for up to a year and fined $100,000 dollars.  They are seeking tax-deductible donations to pay $50,000 in legal fees and solidarity messages and actions by other groups.  For more information see:  defendembassyprotectors.org/

Tulsi Gabbard voted for House Resolution 246

Tulsi Gabbard is being justly criticized for voting for House Resolution 246 "Opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel" July 23rd.  I would have condemned the resolution and I avoid products made in Israel, but it should be noted that the text acknowledges Americans' first amendment rights to criticize US and Israeli policies and the use of boycotts against countries like South Africa, and it calls for a 'viable, democratic Palestinian state."  It is possible that BDS is sometimes excessive, but Israel's actions are outraging the world and under the Trump administration the USA makes even less of an attempt to appear like a evenhanded peace broker.  Israel is the entity carrying out collective punishment and denying the rights of its neighbors and its Arab citizens.  Islamophobia is increasing around the world and often leads to violence against Muslims and even people just thought to be Muslim and is being used by the new crop of 'authoritarian' leaders, such as Trump.  The resolution doesn't seem to do anything except express that the majority of the House of Representatives is biased against the Palestinians and solidarity campaigns and backs brutal Zionist colonialism, and that isn't new. 

Did Gabbard do this because she is really very opposed to BDS and a partisan for Israel, or was it for expediency or somehow a mistake?  On the other hand, Gabbard still appears to be better on foreign policy than the current occupant of the White House or most of her competitors (or North Carolina's Congressional delegation).  David Price, Butterfield, Foxx, etc. also voted for H.Res.246.  The text, votes, etc. can be found by searching at Thomas.loc.gov [It isn't very surprising that Democrat David Price and other members of Congress from North Carolina voted for the resolution, but I was surprised that Gabbard supported it, given her progressive statements condemning the plot against Venezuela and intervention in Syria, though it's possible that her vote was not surprising to anti-war people in Hawaii.]

The second round of Democratic presidential primary debates are being held July 30 - 31st, and I think Gabbard will appear on the 31st.

Marxism-Leninism Today

Hari Kumar, primary instigator of no longer active Alliance Marxist-Leninist and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist (old articles are online at ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html ), has set up a new blog focusing on Marxist-Leninist history and analysis of current news:  ml-today.com/

Ten years after the US-supported Honduran coup

School of the Americas Watch is urging support for HR1945, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, to end "security aid:" www.soaw.org/take-action-on-the-10th-anniversary-of-the-military-coup-in-honduras/  There are currently 61 co-sponsors, but none representing North Carolina.  Demonstrations and deadly repression is going on in Honduras now, though it is not often mentioned by the mainstream media.   


Library booksales

The Friends of the Durham Library will have booksales August 3 - 4, October 5 - 6, and December 7 - 8, and the hours for all of these sales will be 10am - 12pm members only and 12 - 4pm open to all on Saturdays and 1 - 4pm $10 paper grocery bag sales open to all on Sundays.  The sales are at Books Among Friends (Suite 252) inside Northgate Mall (1058 West Club Boulevard, Durham), formerly next to Sears (with Sears closed, people will have to enter through entrance 8, between Foot Locker and Plato's Closet; FODL store's back service door won't be open).  There are small satellite sales inside the library branches daily ( durhamcountylibrary.org/friends/ ). 

The Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library will have book sales September 13 - 15 and December 6 -8 ( friendschpl.org/FCHPLevents ).

Friends of the Lee County Library has a continuous book sale:  library.leecountync.gov/friends  

Niche Gardens is going out of business

This pioneering native plant nursery a few miles southwest of Carrboro is going out of business ( nichegardens.com/ ).  It is no longer possible to order online, but they will be open Mondays - Fridays 9am - 5pm in August.  Sales will start in September, with all plants available for 25% off September 2nd through 22nd, and even more September 23rd to their close on October 18th.  Plants can't be reserved, sales are final, no exchanges or credits, and no itemized receipts.  The nursery itself is for sale.  Niche is at 1111 Dawson Road (look for a gravel driveway on the left); from Carrboro take Jones Ferry Road across University Lake, turn right on to Old Greensboro Road, and Dawson Road is on the left after 7.5 miles).  Besides the retail nursery there are display gardens.  NCSU graduate Kim Hawks founded Niche Gardens on Dawson Road in 1986, when gardening with native plants was a more unusual concept.  The nursery was also a pioneer in selling plants online.  Hawks sold the nursery to employee Blair Durant in 2002, and I think he was still in charge as of last year.        

August 1st - 7th is World Breastfeeding Week:  www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2019/08/01/default-calendar/world-breastfeeding-week-2019

Friedrich Engels died August 5, 1895 in London, UK of throat cancer.  His ashes were spread in the English Channel off of the high white chalk sea cliffs of Beachy Head in East Sussex, England. 

The bombing of Hiroshima

The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima a little after 8am on August 6, 1945.  The UK consented under the Quebec Agreement.

The USSR and Mongolia entered the war against Japan very early on August 9th, as had long been requested by the other Allies, and quickly advanced deep into Japanese-held areas.

The bombing of Nagasaki

A second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki August 9, 1945 after 11am when the cloud cover that would have saved the city broke (Wikipedia articles say that the primary target August 9th was Kokura and that it had been the alternative target on August 6th).  The bomb used on Hiroshima was set to explode as it fell, while the bomb used on Nagasaki exploded at ground level, but hills deflected some of the force and unlike in Hiroshima there wasn't a firestorm.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both hit by atomic bombs (as opposed to more destructive hydrogen or thermonuclear bombs based on nuclear fusion and first developed by the USA for use during the Cold War), but the designs were different.

August 9th is the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples and this year it focuses on Indigenous Peoples' Languages and 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages:  www.un.org/en/events/indigenousday/  I would like to study Classical Nahuatl or a related modern language.    

SAF End of Summer Celebration

This fundraiser for Student Action with Farmworkers will be Sunday, August 11th 1 - 4pm at the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh.  Meet the community of SAF supporters and enjoy food, music, and art, and the announcement says something about the opening of NCSU's corn maize:  www.saf-unite.org/content/saf-end-summer-celebration

International Youth Day is August 12th:  www.un.org/en/events/youthday/

The Mexican capital Tenochtitlan fell to a force of several hundred Spaniards and thousands of Indian allies under Hernando Cortés around August 13, 1521, following a long siege and attack by land and water (the city was in a large lake, Lake Texcoco, and crossed by many canals).  Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc (his predecessor Cuitláhuac, who replaced Moctezuma II, had died of disease in 1520) was captured as a flotilla attempted to escape the last assault in Tlatelolco, Tenochtitlan's connected sister city.  Tens to hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants were killed in battle and by massacres (also involving rape and looting), disease epidemics, and starvation (similar to the numbers killed by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki).  Much of Tenochtitlan was levelled during the war and modern Mexico City sits on the ruins.  In all, several thousand Spanish and native allies (the majority of casualties were allies), were killed.  The Spanish force included some non-Spaniards and women.     

Societies far away probably didn't know about Tenochtitlan and the rest of the Valley of Mexico, but populous Tenochtitlan and the surrounding region could be considered a cultural and political capital of North America in its time, similar to New York City, Washington, and Los Angeles today.  It was the capital of one of the most politically and culturally powerful states in pre-Columbian North America.  I think objects from ancient Mexican cultures have been found as far away as the Southwest and Eastern US, though it is an open question whether people there knew their origin.  Maize formed the basis of the economy over much of the Pre-Columbian Americas and is thought to have been domesticated in what is now Mexico, though that was long before the Mexica and might have begun in a different region.  

Karl Liebknecht was born August 14, 1871 in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany and was a founder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (which he represented in Prussia's parliament and later in the German Reichstag), the Spartacist League, and the Communist Party of Germany.  Along with Rosa Luxemburg he was tortured and executed by Freikorps rightists, supporting the Social-Democratic German government at the end of WWI.   

In a recorded radio broadcast at noon on August 15, 1945 Emperor Hirohito announced domestically that Japan had surrendered to the Allies.

UNC-Chapel Hill will start charging for parking on weeknights, from 5pm on Mondays to 7:30am on Fridays, starting Thursday, August 15th (and daytime parking on weekdays is not free as usual):   move.unc.edu/parking/weeknight-parking/

World Humanitarian Day is August 19th:  www.un.org/en/events/humanitarianday/

The International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism Day is August 21st:  www.un.org/en/events/victimsofterrorismday/

The International Day Commemorating the Victims of Violence Based on Religion or Belief is August 22nd:  www.un.org/en/events/victimsofreligiousviolenceday/

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition is August 23rd, commemorating the beginning the Haitian Revolution on the night of August 22 - 23, 1791 in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Santo Domingo:  en.unesco.org/commemorations/slavetraderemembranceday

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born August 27, 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany; his thought was a major influence in the later development of Marxism.   

Triangle Friends of Farmworkers late summer activities
TFF will cook for the FLOC Black-Brown Unity Tour bus coming to North Carolina from Toledo, Ohio August 27th.  To help, come to 130 Hunt Street in Durham anytime 1 - 6pm August 26th and possibly also August 27th; the morning of August 29th members will set up a lunch at the FLOC office in Dudley. 

The next anti-VUSE picket at a Circle K, in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, September 3rd, details TBA.

The campaign to give Circle K one-star reviews on Google and Yelp continues.  If you do it at home, let them know your name, the store's address, the date, and optionally your review.  Just on July 17th members left about 60 reviews.  Below is an example:

Circle-K REVIEW:  Location:  5009 Fayetteville Road, Garner/Raleigh, NC                     July 7, 2019
“This Circle K always has a wide variety of snacks, and a gal can’t live without her favorite snacks and a sturdy cup of coffee.  Add to that the convenient location, chit-chatty workers and my loyalty is hooked.  It is a source of frustration to me, however, that Circle K continues to stock VUSE e-cigarettes in defiance of a nationwide boycott supporting FLOC, the farm workers union, which means, by extension, that Circle K also supports the inhumane treatment those workers endure from Reynolds Tobacco.  Since I, a stubborn Missouri Mule in Garner, refuse to support cruelty in any form, this means I can no longer stop here even if I am craving a Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème cookie.   So instead of the high grade I would like to give this business,  I must give a "one" until such time as the corporate values of Circle K align with my personal values regarding the way farm workers are treated.  Please pressure your management to support this move for justice.  Please hurry - ease your conscience and my withdrawal symptoms.       Thank you for your consideration”.  

TFF's next business meeting will be Monday, September 23rd at 7pm at 130 Hunt Street in Durham.

The International Day Against Nuclear Tests is August 29th:  www.un.org/en/events/againstnucleartestsday/  I was surprised to learn that the US detonated nuclear weapons as recently as 1992:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States%27_nuclear_weapons_tests  In the Vela Incident on September 22, 1979 a possible nuclear test was detected in the Indian Ocean between South Africa and Antarctica.  There were many theories, including that it was a joint test by South Africa and Israel (Israel is generally thought to have hundreds of nuclear weapons today and South Africa used to have nuclear weapons). 

The International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is August 30th:  www.un.org/en/events/disappearancesday/ 

US and Canadian Labor Day, is Monday, September 2nd.  Unions called for the creation of a day for workers in the late 19th century, with some advocating a date in September, and the government supported a September date instead of May 1st, associated with revolutionary labor movements. Around the world May Day is labor day or an official holiday in many countries, such as Mexico, and that date also has roots in the American labor movement.  Beginning under Eisenhower May 1st has been called Loyalty Day and Law Day and previously it was Child Health Day.

Imperial Japan formally surrendered September 2, 1945 onboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.  There were other surrenders elsewhere. 

Wild and Scenic Film Festival

This annual environmental film festival will be Thursday, September 5th 6:30 - 9:30pm at the Carrboro Century Center (100 North Greensboro Street, Carrboro) and is being organized by the Haw River Assembly.  Tickets are $20 to 30 dollars, and can be bought at hawriver.org/2019-wild-scenic-film-festival/ or by calling 919 542 5790. 

International Literacy Day is September 8th:  www.un.org/en/events/literacyday/  The success of Cuba's 1961 literacy campaign and later initiatives both in Cuba and as aid to other countries have often been noted. 

World Suicide Prevention Day is September 10th:  www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/wspd/en/

National Estuaries Week will be September 14 - 21.

International Day of Democracy is September 15th:  www.un.org/en/events/democracyday/

Mexico's Independence Day is September 16th, commemorating Miguel Hidalgo's Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores) in 1810.

The International Day for Preservation of the Ozone Layer is September 16th:  www.un.org/en/events/ozoneday/  September 16, 2009 agreements protecting the ozone layer became the first universally ratified UN treaties.  The ozone layer (made of a form of oxygen) absorbs some ultraviolet light, but is depleted by industrial chemicals, such as CFCs, which are also potent greenhouse gases. 

The 62nd Annual Convention of the NC AFL-CIO will be held September 19 - 20 in Charlotte.

 The Global Climate Strike will be September 20.

Durham's annual Centerfest will be September 20th and 21st (10am-11pm Saturday and 11am to 5pm Sunday) downtown:  centerfest.durhamarts.org/  

The International Day of Peace is September 21st and this year's theme is Climate Action for Peace: www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/

The NC Museum of Natural History's BugFest will be September 21st and this year's theme is beetles (almost 1/4th of all known animal species are beetles).

The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is September 26th:  www.un.org/en/events/nuclearweaponelimination/  The USA, Russia, and other major nuclear powers demand that smaller countries completely and unilaterally denuclearize, and not develop rockets that could carry nuclear weapons, while they have thousands of nuclear weapons ready to destroy humanity and instead of beginning to get rid of them, they spend huge amounts to maintain their current weapons and develop new ones. 

Iraq was accused of developing nuclear weapons, and was invaded in 2003, killing many civilians and leading to sectarian conflict and the creation of ISIS.  Libya gave up its weapons program and was attacked in 2011, creating a "failed state" and flood of migrants through Libya to the EU.  Democrats and Republicans accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and it is under severe pressure and faces war, despite not developing nuclear weapons while under threat from nuclear powers, and agreeing to the JCPOA, which Trump tore up.  Iran also has the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.  The DPRK developed nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and seems relatively safe from attack by the USA and other countries, though that isn't only because of its nuclear status, and the nuclear weapons give the US another justification for its Korean policies.  On the other hand, the US doesn't mind when its allies, such as Israel and India, develop nuclear weapons and even helps them. 

World Maritime Day is also September 26th, and focuses on women working in shipping industries this year:  www.un.org/en/events/maritimeday/

World Rabies Day is September 28th:  www.who.int/rabies/WRD_landing_page/en/  I heard from a local licensed wildlife rehabilitator that vaccination against this almost universally fatal virus is offered by the Durham health department, and immunity usually lasts a long time, but vaccination is expensive. 

September 28th is also the International Day for Universal Access to Information:  en.unesco.org/commemorations/accesstoinformationday

World Space Week is October 4th - 10th:  www.un.org/en/events/spaceweek/

Demand an End to War:  Rage Against the War Machine

This sequel to the March on the Pentagon last fall ( durhamspark.blogspot.com/2018/10/reportback-from-womens-march-on.html ) will be Friday, October 11th in front of the White House and the Anti-Imperialist Revolution Summit will be Saturday, October 12th ( marchonpentagon.com/demand-an-end-to-war-rage-against-the-war-machine/ ).

The next planning call will be August 4th at 3pm EST, 2pm CST, and 12pm PST:  marchonpentagon.com/rage-against-the-war-machine-call-sunday-august-4/

Chapel Hill's annual Festifall will be Saturday, October 12th 11am - 3pm along West Franklin Street and includes political groups:  www.chapelhillfestifall.com/

Disarmament Week is October 24th - 30th:  www.un.org/en/events/disarmamentweek/

Brexit

Just in time for Halloween, the United Kingdom is now supposed to leave the European Union October 31st, possibly "crashing out" without a withdrawal agreement, resulting in problems such as the return of a "hard" international border between British-held Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and the possibility of renewed fighting.  Brexit could also encourage the disintegration of the UK if constituents such as Scotland or Northern Ireland vote to secede in coming years, and there are already calls for referenda. 

Close the School of the Americas

School of the Americas Watch is organizing a demonstration outside Fort Benning, Georgia (near Columbus and the border with Alabama) November 15 - 17.  November 16th is the 30th anniversary of a massacre at the Central American University in San Salvador, El Salvador in 1989. 
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Monday, December 31, 2018

Burdens Creek Bluff and surrounding landscape, trashed



Looking down into the floodplain in late March. The buckeyes are leafing out and the trout lilies are about done blooming ©.
About a mile north of the pinxterflower azaleas threatened by Duke Energy there is another area with unusually diverse and abundant wildflowers for this part of the Triangle, but marred by rampant trash dumping and there are other problems nearby (for the pinxterflower article, posted September 8th, see: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2018/09/pinxterflowers-duke-energy-and-federal.html ). From the pinxterflowers, we go north along the edge of RTP, crossing TW Alexander Drive at the light, quickly coming to the top of a hill, stopping before the bridge over Burdens Creek. On the east a relatively young forest, hiding some brickwork and a former farm pond (visited by the occasional great blue heron and bordered by buttonbushes, a very good flower for butterflies and other pollinators, if I remember correctly), was levelled and the pond filled in around 2009 to build what is now a Duke Health office building surrounded by a large treeless parking lot (where the pond was). I think the builder was required to build a mulched trail along the sewer easement paralleling Burdens Creek, but floods washed it away and it was never replaced. As I started writing this article the site was owned by Phoenix, Arizona-based Cole Real Estate Investments, but maybe two weeks later the name changed to Cole HC Durham NC LLC and the mail is directed to The RMR Group in Newton, Massachusetts (see Durham's interactive GIS maps at durhamnc.gov/1455/Interactive-Maps ). There are a lot of wildflowers in the surrounding woods, though English ivy, multiflora roses, and other non-native plants grow in the swampy woods north of the parking lot and the population of native Indian grass on a utility easement along Alston seems to have been destroyed by utility or road work. South of this site there is a brick building long housing an American Legion post, now apparently used as a church. Some native and introduced flowers grow along Alston, and old-fashioned pink and dark red roses bloom (or once bloomed) in May at a secluded spot closer to the Social Security Administration facility. To clarify some details in the earlier article, property records say that the SSA's building was built around 2008 on land last sold May 1, 2007 and is owned by Winston-Salem-based JDL-RTP LLC.


Swampy forest left between Burdens Creek and the Duke Health building, visible on the right. Amphibians breed in these seasonal pools and there are many wildflowers, but this young forest also has more non-native plants than the forest on the west side of Alston, for example the Japanese honeysuckle visible here ©.

On the west side of Alston there were a few small houses, but today only one is left, overlooking the bridge at Burdens Creek. At the crest of the hill a house surrounded by woods was used as a daycare for a long time, but was replaced by a complex with three brick buildings (5310 South Alston Avenue) in about 2002. It apparently won a 2003 Merit Award in the North Carolina Architectural Competition, sponsored by the Brick Association of NC (but I can only find one reference: www.loopnet.com/Listing/14218503/5310-South-Alston-Avenue-Building-100-Durham-NC/ ; other photos at: www.loopnet.com/Listing/19797681/5310-S-Alston-Avenue-Durham-NC/ ). I think I read once that the office complex was designed by Durham's Freelon Group, Inc., and it houses their office, merged with Perkins+Will in 2014. The complex had been listed as belonging to The Dilweg Companies, LLC ( www.dilweg.com/ ), with offices in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida, and a focus on office buildings, but in recent years the owner has been listed as I-LOFT RTP LLC, based in Suite 210, the same address as Dilweg's Corporate Office. I was thrown out of this complex once, which I attribute to white collar bias. Parts of the complex are listed as belonging to the Life Community Church of RTP NC INC (with an RTP address; I haven't seen any activity at building 100, on the south end, but it is apparently Life International's Global Leaders Center). John S Carbone LLC (in nearby Morrisville) and CCR Durham Land Holdings (in Santa Monica, California) are also listed as owners, and other companies lease office space. There are few wildflowers in the remaining young, piney woods surrounding the complex, but the property lines extend down the slope behind the buildings and across the floodplain where there is older deciduous forest with more floral diversity.
 
There is a lot of privately-owned open space in Durham, even in the urban core, often owned by companies far from North Carolina. In urban areas there is the similar issue of public spaces that are increasingly privately-owned, so people can be deprived of rights more easily than in truly public city squares and parks. There is also the issue that volunteers can freely pick up trash in a park, but could be barred by private owners, even if the owners refuse to take responsibility themselves. There are a few more or less working farms in Durham (and more in nearby Orange County), but the non-built up parts of Durham are mostly long abandoned farmland now returned to forest, probably because farming so close to an urban center became cost prohibitive. Over the decades a lot of “development” in Durham has been on this former farmland at the periphery. Durham had two malls, to which was added Southpoint Mall at the south end of the County, so Durham briefly had three malls, and at least two more close by in neighboring counties, but then older South Square Mall closed and that site still hasn't been completely re-developed, so Durham is back to having only two malls. Supposedly sprawl wasn't going to spread from Southpoint, but that is what seems to be happening, even before the General Assembly forced Durham to accept 751 South few years ago. It has only been relatively recently, maybe in the last 10 to 20 years, that there has been much building downtown, in the abandoned ruins of the tobacco industry and open spaces.
        
The main concern is next to the offices, at the Falls Pointe at the Park Apartments (100 Cascade Falls Lane, www.fallspointeattheparkapartments.com/ , formerly fallspointeapartments.com/ ). I thought they were built after the office complex, but property records say Falls Pointe was built around 2001. For several years if not from the beginning Falls Pointe belonged to The NRP Group, LLC ( www.nrpgroup.com/ ), based in Cleveland, Ohio and having 16 offices, all in the East, including one office in NC (4515 Falls of Neuse Road Suite 100 Raleigh, NC 27609). According to property records, the complex was sold (by subsidiaries NRP Alston Village, LLC and NRP Alston Management, LLC) April 25, 2018 to Fairfield Residential ( http://www.fairfieldresidential.com/ ), based in San Diego, California (5510 Morehouse Drive Suite 200 San Diego, California 92121), although the actual owner is a subsidiary called Fairfield Falls Pointe LLC, with the same San Diego address. NRP still owns a large area of floodplain that surely cannot be built on, perhaps as mitigation for construction elsewhere (last sold December 27, 2000, presumably the date when they originally acquired the land). This article mainly covers the period under NRP management, and it is possible things will improve, but there was still plenty of trash in the woods in the fall. Before the apartments were built there were about two small houses near the road, with a large field of tawny broomsedge and lawn in between, and young lobolly pines, red cedars, and maybe a thicket of sumac or blackberries towards the back, but this mostly flat area drops off steeply to the edge of the swampy floodplain west and northwest, forming what can be called Burdens Creek Bluff. Older deciduous hardwoods grow on the slope and in the floodplain. A slough, probably a former course of Burdens Creek, runs along the base of the Bluff, which slopes more or less steeply down from the apartments, with some natural terraces.
 
Behind Falls Pointe the hillside has a lot of plant diversity, and is literally covered with flowers in early spring, probably because of atypical soil weathered from igneous rocks that intruded into the surrounding sedimentary rocks millions of years ago; the long time the forest was left mostly undisturbed; and the cool, moist microclimate formed by the steep, generally northwest-facing hillside. Some flowers can bloom as early as December, but definitely by March yellow trout lilies densely cover the slope, especially at the top, while lower down there are numerous grasslike spring beauties with white flowers that open when it is sunny. Relatively rare toothworts, another white to pinkish flower, are common on a moist terrace and there are rare pennyworts. Other spring flowers include rue anemone (also known as windflower, a forb with white flowers that nod in the wind), purple-colored violets, saxifrage, and possibly relatively rare white star chickweed, related to the rare firepinks once found down the road. The blue or lavender to white flowers of Hepatica, formed by sepals rather than petals, can appear as early as December or January. Hepatica and evergreen wild ginger have leathery leaves with interesting marbled patterns as if for camouflage. Trout lilies also have striking leaves, finely dappled like the sides of a native brook trout, only visible in spring. Trout lilies are also known as dogtooth violets, but are lilies. Many of these native wildflowers are relatively rare in the Triangle and are very abundant here. Being flowers of older woodlands and early blooming (several are spring ephemerals, perennials that only appear aboveground for a short time, before the trees leaf out), they are probably unknown to most people today.
 
Five hundred years ago these flowers and species now entirely absent might have grown all over what is now Durham, but agriculture and overharvesting are probably the reasons they are now restricted to older woodlands near waterways. Overgrazing by deer might be another factor, and the scarcity of predators (due to human persecution and habitat loss, but some remain) or areas where deer can be hunted allowed their population to boom. Catesby's trilliums, if not other species of trillium, are supposed to grow in the Triangle, but I have never seen any, except for a dark red species growing along woodland trails at the NC Botanical Garden, presumably planted. Further west, Randolph County must be full of them, if they can allow acres of trilliums to be drowned under recently impounded Lake Randelman, on the Deep River south of Greensboro and north of the town of Randleman ( ptrwa.org/index.htm ), from what I have heard.
 
Trout lilies and some spring beauty leaves in late February ©.
 
A few toothworts and spring beauties still blooming in late March and there are many trout lilies not blooming and a sprig of strawberry bush ©.


Spring beauties in bloom and trout lily foliage ©.


Toothwort, rue anemone, and spring beauty flowers ©.

The forest floor in April is carpeted with blooming spring beauties along with many other wildflowers, not blooming, such as pink wood sorrel ©.

Later in the spring pink wood sorrel, mayapples, alumroot, and Solomon's seal (or a relative) bloom, while at the foot of the hill there seem to be Atamasco or Easter lilies. I have heard that these large white lilies used to be abundant at what is now the Greenwood Commons shopping center nearby. There is a huge patch of dwarf crested irises, though they might be too shaded to flower. There could be some Carolina blue bluets around, a relatively common spring flower, though I haven't noticed many in recent years. Cranefly orchids have leaves that are dark green on top and bright purple below during the cool months, but are leafless by the time they flower in summer. Beechdrops also bloom in summer and are always leafless, being parasitic on beech tree roots. There are jack-in-the-pulpits in the bottomlands. Spring is the best time for flowers at the Bluff, but some composites bloom in the summer and fall when there is mostly heavy shade.

Dark evergreen Christmas ferns grow near the foot of the hill, and there are a few other ferns. Large igneous boulders at the top of the slope are covered with clinging resurrection ferns, so-called because their thick leaves can shrivel up, but resurrect green and flat again later. There are also a few spleenworts amid the rocks and even growing out of small cracks. There is little if any poison ivy on the hillside. In May bright red coral honeysuckle blooms along the forest edge behind the apartments, as do very large strawberry or hearts a'bustin (with love) bushes, named for their spiny, hot pink capsules that dangle red-orange seeds in the fall; their flowers are much less spectacular. The shrub layer also includes lots of painted buckeyes that have yellow flowers in March, visited by bumblebees; maple-leaf viburnums that have clusters of white flowers in May; and pawpaws, possibly the dwarf variety. Taller pawpaw groves are common along nearby creeks and have large, cloying, bananalike fruit in late summer. The hillside has a few scattered dogwoods, redbuds, and fringetrees that bloom in March and April when they get enough light down in the understory. Overhead there are various oaks, hickories, American beech, ash, sugar maples, and a large black walnut, surrounded by legumes during the summer.


Resurrection ferns, cranefly orchids, trout lilies, coral honeysuckle, and other plants at the top of the Bluff ©.
Frogs and probably also salamanders breed in the pools below the Bluff in early spring. Marbled salamanders and small snakes shelter under debris on the moist hillside. Eastern newts, seemingly rare in this part of Durham, have been found in the neighborhood, and much more common Eastern box turtles can also be found. By late summer large brown mosquitoes make going into the forest problematic, but there are also many fireflies and large black damselflies, the territorial males jet black with bodies that flash with blue and green iridescence in the forest shade. In the large area of bottomland forest barred owls, hawks, migratory yellow-bellied sapsuckers, herons, and other birds can be heard or seen at various times. There could be wood ducks, pileated woodpeckers, prothonotary warblers, woodcocks, and even turkeys. River otters are said to live in relatively small and clear (except when it turned opaque and yellow as 540 was being built upstream) Burdens Creek. There are many crayfish and fish in the Creek, and probably freshwater mussels, though the main species might be an Asian species. There are also beavers. Once in these woods I suddenly found myself walking along next to a possum during the day and there are raccoons and deer. With the people there are also feral or pet cats. Maybe there are nocturnal flying squirrels, and there must be flocks of moths and katydids on summer nights, Urbanization must be reducing their numbers, but I see a lot on Hopson Road on summer nights.
 
Fortunately the richest and oldest woods were mostly left alone when the apartments and offices were built, but the apartments come very close to the edge of the slope, which people seem to take as an invitation to dump their trash, and NRP never seemed much troubled by it. Landscaping contractors dumped fallen leaves, uprooted bushes, excess soil, etc., though one of NRP's local managers claimed they were against this (it seems like they should have been in control of their own contractors). The large debris piles take years to decompose, so plants underneath are killed, and this debris propagates non-native bushes into the woods. People go to these piles and dump trash, or throw it just inside the forest edge or over the slope. Maybe a year or two ago one brush pile had a lot of disposable diapers and the one next to it a lot of bagged pet waste, leading to the question of which is worse, the fecal coliform bacteria and pathogens or the plastic that won't decompose or fragment for a very long time. At various times there have been small piles of kitchen garbage, mattresses, furniture, a sofa, a broken wall mirror, rugs, tools, cellphones, a wrecked laptop, a computer monitor, batteries, plastic food packaging, plastic and glass bottles, cans, pots, shoes, etc. The complex has a central trash compactor and recycling center and they must have rules about trash disposal. NRP's local management claimed they cleaned up trash something like once or twice a year, probably meaning at most only a few feet into the trees, even though NRP owned and still owns a large area of the forest. The only reason there isn't more trash there now is because volunteers clean up some of it, mainly the plastic, one to three times a year. A few years ago Durham County passed a law forcing people to clean up excessive trash or aesthetic 'problems' on their land, and that helped here three years ago. The law is probably aimed more at penalizing homeowners, who may be poor, old, or prefer unconventional or naturalistic, wildlife-friendly landscaping, rather than companies that don't care about trash as long as it isn't in front of their offices. Besides the trash, herbicide is or was periodically sprayed along the forest edge and chemicals are probably spread on the lawns. Native solitary bees, providers of valuable and free pollination services, dug their burrows in one spot. Some stormwater is sent over the hillside, causing erosion, though I have seen worse though probably legal examples, such as behind the Phillips Research Park Apartments, located on a hill off Ellis Road at the north end of RTP, also surrounded by biologically rich older woodland, and at the Old Chatham Golf Club in Chatham County, though that might have been corrected by now.


Some of this is snow, but most of it is trash thrown behind Falls Pointe in winter 2010 ©.
  

A few volunteers picked up some trash that spring (photo) and in the fall ©.


Trash picked up in spring 2015 (there were other cleanups through 2018 not shown) ©.

Here is a pile of yard waste and trash that same spring ©.
Three mattresses thrown in a brush pile, a sofa, a burned bicycle, etc. dragged out of the woods in fall 2015 ©.


A pile of trash in summer 2017 ©.

Having corporate offices far away, selling frequently, and creating subsidiaries helps those in control avoid accountability while generating capital. The land, created by nature over an eternity, is seen as a commodity, something created only for exchange on a market, rather than for its use-value, as the common environment humanity and the rest of nature inhabits. I did a short search to see what Marx said regarding the natural environment, and, among other works, there is a chapter of The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (International Publishers, 1964, reprinted 1984, page 101 – 102; another translation is posted online at: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/rent.htm ), containing some of his early writing. This passage is mainly about land used for agriculture and the transition from feudal landed property to capitalist commodification of the land, as is common around the world today, and especially in the USA, created out of colonies with few or no leftover feudal relations, after the land had been basically seized from its native inhabitants, who also had few or no feudal relations. Marx writes without sentimentality about the transition from feudalism to capitalism, which can then be replaced by socialism: “It is necessary that this appearance be abolished [“the semblance of a more intimate connection between the proprietor and the land than that of mere material wealth” and the “political” and “human, intimate” connection between the proprietor and his serfs] … ”that all personal relationship between the proprietor and his property cease, property becoming merely objective, material wealth; that the marriage of convenience should take the place of the marriage of honor with the land; and that land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man. It is essential that that which is the root of landed property – filthy self-interest – make its appearance, too, in its cynical form. It is essential that the immovable monopoly turn into the mobile and restless monopoly, into competition; and that the idle enjoyment of other peoples' blood and toil turn into a bustling commerce in the same commodity ... The medieval proverb nulle terre sans seigneur [there is no land without its lord] is thereby replaced by that other proverb, l'argent n'a pas de maître [money knows no no master], wherein is expressed the complete domination of dead matter over mankind,” domination over both the landowner and the worker. Later he writes that “Association,” replacing capitalist relations, has both economy of scale and equality, and “reestablishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering...” There is extensive discussion of the false view of land and other economic factors as commodities in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by economic historian Karl Polanyi, published in 1944 (quotes are from the Second Beacon Paperback, published in 2001). He writes that “A market economy must comprise all elements of industry, including labor, land, and money … But labor and land are no other than the human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws of the market” (page 74 – 75). But even in the early 40's it could be seen that in treating land as a commodity “Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed … no society could stand the effects of such a system of crude fictions [labor, land, and money treated as commodities] even for the shortest stretch of time unless its human and natural substance as well as its business organization was protected against the ravages of this satanic mill” (page 76 – 77).  

There would have to be much more trash to kill the wildflowers, but this special area that should be appreciated and protected is instead marred with trash, and the trash is harmful to the plants and possibly wildlife. Whatever waste isn't decomposed or buried washes into Burdens Creek and on towards Jordan Lake, where a large amount of trash is cleaned up by volunteers and government employees every year. No doubt tons of debris and trash have to be cleaned up at Jordan Lake State Recreation Area's swimming areas after the prolonged flooding in the fall. There are worse threats to local biodiversity, but the attitude that it is okay to dump trash in a woods, where few will see it, is like the attitude that it is fine to let exotic chemical GenX or pharmaceuticals get into the Cape Fear River, leave coal ash where it could contaminate groundwater and waterways, bury toxic waste near Crabtree Creek, or send excessive carbon dioxide and poisons from fossil fuels into the atmosphere. It might be out of sight and out of mind, but it adds up to become a problem for the community. Things like light pointlessly radiated into the night sky, the winter roar of traffic on I-40, and native trees engineered to suit the timber industry are also a kind of dumping and lack of consideration that could harm other people and our common environment. I hope to write about some of these problems in the New Year.

There must be other trash-filled natural areas in Durham, but I am glad to rarely come across them. At one time, possibly when suburbs first came to these parts, trash was dumped at certain bridges and the ends of roads, and volunteers cleaning up trash for Earth Day (April 22nd) and Big Sweep (early October in Durham) still find appliances, mowers, shopping carts, even cars, but much of the trash has been removed and nature is overwhelming and burying the junk. The early suburbs also dumped partially treated sewage into creeks and while the water released by treatment plants into many creeks today is far cleaner, it is still a source of pollution. Sometimes people still dump trash and yard waste on roadsides or in secluded areas, but they can get into trouble if there is a witness or something that bears their address is included. In one of the more unusual cases, pounds of seemingly edible bread were scattered along So-Hi Drive. Rural trash middens, half-buried deposits of antique glass jars, etc., sometimes even divided by brand, are hidden in woods all over Durham County. This trash is half-buried, becoming more of a 20th century archaeological curosity than an eyesore or hazard, though animals such as mice and emerging cicadas could get trapped and snakes have been known to swallow bottles and golf balls, another frequent find in wooded areas. Fresh litter is abundant in many places, escaping from dumpsters behind businesses, discarded along high-traffic roads, or washed in during floods. Every week Durham's semi-automated trash trucks release litter as they make the rounds in my neighborhood.
 
Lots of trash, probably from Durham, dumped at the Northeast Creek Waterfowl Impoundment in Chatham County (owned by the Army Corps of Engineers and operated by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission) and probably cleaned up by government workers ©.
  
Litter and bags of trash and tires dumped where Ellis Road crosses Northeast Creek in Durham ©.

Keep Durham Beautiful probably lacks the power to prevent a lot of these problems, but also doesn't help concerned citizens enough, and local and state governments also seem to care little, though they have some power to stop the dumping and get it cleaned up. It is very hard to get the NC DOT to fulfill its responsibility and pick up large junk dumped on rural roadsides, which they claim they can't find when informed, though they were very diligent in spraying herbicide along Scott King Road and Highway 54 over the summer (see the earlier post). Volunteers can adopt roads and clean up litter there two or three times a year, but not all roads can be adopted, including even some roads that have signs saying that they are available.  
 
Across the railroad tracks behind Falls Pointe there have been plans to build on hills at the northeast corner of TW Alexander and Highway 55, across from the Triangle Wastewater Treatment Plant (and a sludge drying facility will be built on the southeast corner) for several years, but clearing started a few weeks ago, before the snow, and a Charlotte-based subsidiary of the PulteGroup, Inc. ( www.pultegroupinc.com/home/default.aspx ), one of the largest residential builders in the US, bought the corner October 9, 2018. The site was last cleared several years ago, but a thick young forest resprouted. I don't think there are a lot of wildflowers there, but there might be some jack-in-the-pulpits. I thought Pulte might leave some woods between the houses and the treatment plant (though it has been upgraded several times over the years and doesn't produce as much of a smell now), but everything is being cut, except along a stream coming from the SSA site and a wetland that might have been flooded by beavers. The hill has a good view, but it would not be surprising if Pulte mass grades it down to a more mediocre level, allowing a lot of silt to erode into the stream, which goes into Burdens Creek, with few around to see it.
 
Looking south from the Pulte site, across TW Alexander Drive to the large field where a high hill once stood; the SSA facility is in the distance on the left ©.
 
Another view of the Pulte site; the saplings have mostly been cleared, but it is doubtful if any of the larger trees still standing, or even the contours of the land will still be here when they are done ©.

 
A barred owl perched in this relatively large oak, but it is just barely on the wrong side of the "Tree Protection Area" fence, and will probably be cut (or will it be saved by the blue band painted on it?), as well as the beech next to it and the loblolly pine saplings in the background ©.

Over the last three or four years many townhouses have been built several miles away around the intersection of Highway 54 and Barbee Road, on a ridge which forms the watershed between Northeast Creek and smaller Crooked Creek (Barbee Road basically marks the top of the ridge between the two basins). The construction on 54 hasn't done much for the roadside scenery and the design didn't take into consideration the good views of the sky and landscape there, or the former farm ponds, now filled in. Public engineering companies in Durham claim they can't add features highlighting a site's natural advantages because of local regulations that make features like trails too expensive. The height of buildings must be regulated, but if companies and local governments are going to build dense housing and increase mass transit services, allowing higher buildings in the suburbs could save land. Pulte built the townhouse project on the northeast corner at 54 and Barbee and previously, in 2009, Pulte merged with the Centex Corporation, the company behind many of the residential projects near Barbee Road (typically large “McMansions” with little space in between and few trees left standing, which might be the current 'style' or the result of a push for density by the Durham Planning Department). Despite erosion controls, the small streams around 54 and Barbee turned opaque yellow, and after rain Northeast Creek was unusually yellow, though there is additional construction going on upstream as well, such as along Ellis Road at 147 and on NC 55. Southern Durham's clayey Triassic Basin soil, weathered from sedimentary rocks created in rift valleys that opened up when dinosaurs were around, erodes when exposed and then doesn't settle easily.

Several years ago the Triangle Brick Company clearcut its extensive holdings where Durham, Wake, and Chatham counties meet, across Highway 55 from the pinxterflowers, and sometime in 2018 more land was cut along Grandale Road around the border between Durham and Chatham counties. I thought Durham had or has a policy of not building densely south of Scott King Road, but a residential project along 751 was approved and Cary is advancing from the other side, so I wonder if this is just timber harvesting or something more. Durham has a rule regarding building after clearcutting, but someone has to be watching. In the current brushy state these areas will benefit the deer population, as well as rodents and red-tailed hawks, but not species that need large unbroken woodlands. The combination of protected gamelands and mostly forested private land there forms a valuable corridor for wildlife, something the NC Natural Heritage Program pointed out to local governments.
 
Burdens Creek Bluff - today the land rests under a blanket of snow ©. 
 
Part of the Burdens Creek floodplain, probably flooded by beavers ©.


A wading bird track beside the slough and a Chinese privet ©.
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Thursday, January 19, 2017

Redbay, sassafras, and the harm caused by globalization

A redbay at the NC Botanical Garden ©

Besides the near extermination of ashes and possibly other trees by the emerald ash borer, the subject of a previous post (April 16, 2016), there are a few other serious non-native threats to the integrity of North Carolina's environment, either established in nearby states or already found here (there is an overview at: ncforestservice.gov/forest_health/current_concerns.htm ). Another major threat to forest ecosystems is laurel wilt, a non-native fungal disease spread by the similarly exotic redbay ambrosia beetle, which kills trees in the laurel family, especially redbays, but also sassafras, avocados, and other species, and is already spreading in southeastern North Carolina.

In summer 2002 a USDA pilot project to detect newly arrived non-native insects, started only in 2001, caught redbay ambrosia beetles (Xyleborus glabratus) around Port Wentworth, Georgia, near Savannah. These tiny woodboring beetles, about 2 mm long, are native from eastern India and Bangladesh to Taiwan, southern Japan, and some Pacific islands, and are not a major pest there. Females were trapped in 2002, probably the first generation born in solid wooden packing material from Asia. It only takes one female to start an infestation and the beetles can complete their life cycle in as little as 40-60 days. There are multiple broods in a year and adults are around at any time of year and the winged females are most active late in the day, which is important when using some insecticides. By 2003 people realized that an unusual number of redbay trees were dying in Chatham County, Georgia (where Port Wentworth is located) and across the border in Beaufort and Jasper counties in South Carolina, and late in 2004 the cause was identified. Redbay ambrosia beetles tunnel into living trees, inoculating them with various fungi (what the beetles actually live off of), carried in pouches on the beetles' mandibles. Apparently the non-native fungus Raffaelea lauricola is what causes laurel wilt. R. lauricola spreads through a tree's xylem vessels, and the fungus itself and possibly the tree's over zealous response to the infection cuts off circulation, girdling and killing the aboveground parts of the tree over as little as 3-12 weeks. Redbay ambrosia beetles have been found carrying R. lauricola in Asia, but laurel family trees there must have co-evolved with the disease while it is a new epidemic in the Americas and can kill healthy trees. The beetles prefer large trees, mostly boring into the first 1.5 meters of the trunk, and sometimes it is possible to see tiny “sawdust toothpicks” marking the boreholes. Older trees are most at risk, but even saplings only 1 to 1.5 cm wide aren't safe. In one place in Florida redbays 1” wide or more were monitored and mortality rose from 10% to 92% in only 15 months and mortality was 98% between 2004 and 2009 on St Catherines Island, Georgia. The beetles prefer redbays (Persea borbonia) here, but have been found on non-laurels in Asia. R. lauricola has been found in live oaks, but only laurel family trees are thought to be at risk, and the fungus can be picked up and transmitted by other species of ambrosia beetle in the laboratory. There is some evidence that avocados might be getting laurel wilt from a different beetle. 

Redbay is most at risk, but swamp bays (Persea palustris) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) are also susceptible, as are two endangered small trees, pondberry (Lindera melissifolia) and pondspice (Litsea aestivalis). In experiments, Northern spicebush (Lindera benzoin), lancewood (Nectandra coriacea), and pepperleaf sweetwood/Gulf Licaria (Licaria triandra) can get laurel wilt to some degree and these small trees/bushes grow in areas already effected by the disease, but redbay ambrosia beetles prefer trees with thicker stems. Spicebush, which grows near waterways in the Triangle, apparently does not attract the beetles, so it may be at low risk, but the beetle likes Asian spicebush. Pepperleaf sweetwood is a Federal endangered species with fewer than 12 wild trees in Miami-Dade County, Florida, but it also grows on some Caribbean islands. By 2007 avocados (P. americana) were dying in yards in Jacksonville, Florida and in 2012 laurel wilt reached commercial groves in Miami-Dade County. The West Indian variety of avocado most common in Florida also happens to be the variety most susceptible to laurel wilt, and avocados are Florida's second biggest fruit industry. On the other hand, avocados on Merritt Island, Florida were surrounded by dying redbays for 3-4 years without major problems, and the beetles reproduce poorly in avocados. A fungus carried by a different ambrosia beetle is impacting avocados in California and affects over 200 plant species, but so far it is only a Western problem. In 2013 a bay laurel, an ornamental native to the Mediterranean, growing near an infected avocado in Gainesville, Florida was killed. Tests show that redbay ambrosia beetles are attracted to and can reproduce in California laurel (Umbellularia californica), and it is susceptible to laurel wilt if the disease gets to the West. Like redbay, California laurel is valued for woodworking, which makes human spread more likely. There is a Mexican redbay that is susceptible in the lab, and there are many related trees in Latin America, some important for timber. Bay laurel and viñátigo (P. indica), a common tree in Madeira and the Canary Islands, are susceptible. Ornamental camphortrees (Cinnamomum camphora) can be killed by laurel wilt, but they co-evolved with the redbay ambrosia beetle in Asia and aren't in much danger. In Asia the beetle is found in trees like Asian spicebush (Lindera latifolia), yellow Litsea (Litsea elongata), and sal (Shorea robusta), and is not known as a pest of avocados.      
 
Sassafras grows throughout North Carolina, while redbay is found in the Coastal Plain, including Moore, Lee, Harnett, Johnston, and Wilson counties just south and east of the Triangle. There are some redbays growing behind the NC Botanical Garden's Totten Center, resembling more familiar broadleaved evergreen magnolias. Spicebush is also found throughout the state, but less so in the Coastal Plain. Pondspice grows in a few places in southeastern NC and pondberry grows in and around Bladen County, the epicenter of laurel wilt in southeast NC. 

A single female beetle is all it takes to start an infestation, and they can travel about 15-34 miles (55 km) a year, and might also be carried in the wind, but they are spreading furthest through unwitting human transportation. In 2004 laurel wilt spread to a campground at Stephen C Foster State Park in Georgia, west of the Okefeenokee National Wildlife Refuge, probably with human help, and in 2007 it spread around a hardwood mulch producer close to Nahunta, Georgia. Earlier in 2006 an infestation started on a railroad line in Jesup, Georgia near a pulp plant and state prison, either on its own or with human help (see the Georgia Forestry Commission's Distribution and Spread of Laurel Wilt Disease in Georgia: 2006-08 Survey and Field Observations, 2008). In 2009 it spread to Richmond County, Georgia, 65 km from the nearest known infestation (Evaluation of Laurel Wilt Disease in Georgia: Progression in Redbay and Sassafras - 2008-2010). The NC Forest Service hasn't disseminated information this detailed about how laurel wilt is being spread, but might if asked. Logs brought in for woodturning took the beetle to Volusia County, Florida in 2008. It has been suggested that emerald ash borers are using vehicles to travel around Russia, and it seems possible that redbay ambrosia beetles could spread that way too. Human transportation seems to have carried the beetle and its fungus to the Gulf coast of Mississippi in 2009, the Florida Panhandle in 2010, central Alabama in 2011, northern Louisiana in 2014, and East Texas in 2015. There is some evidence that the redbay ambrosia beetle spread from Georgia and northern Florida separately, or got to Georgia in 2001, not 2002. The beetle and laurel wilt are now found in southeastern North Carolina, much of South Carolina, coastal Georgia, almost every county in Florida, coastal Alabama and Mississippi, along the Louisiana/Arkansas border (it was discovered in sassafras in Arkansas last February), and in extreme East Texas.
 
Until 2009 the beetle had only gotten as far north as the area around Charleston, SC, but then it jumped to the Myrtle Beach area (Horry County) bordering NC, and in March 2011 it was suddenly found near Colly, at the eastern end of Bladen County, NC and when the NCFS looked for it, it was found in three other counties within 15 miles of the first site. Laurel wilt was found in Brunswick County in 2012, New Hanover County in 2013, and now effects nine counties in NC. I wonder if laurel wilt could have spread more than the NC Forest Service realizes. One piece of good news is that a 2008 study predicted that by 2015 laurel wilt would have spread across most of NC, except for some of the northern Piedmont and mountains, but so far it is only found in Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender, Robeson, and Sampson counties, though it is still spreading within those counties and human transportation has greatly advanced the 'schedule' in other states. At the time sassafras was a wild card and studies have now shown that the beetle tolerates cold well enough to spread throughout the eastern US.

Symptoms of laurel wilt vary by the species affected. Evergreen redbays turn wilted and brown until the entire canopy is just dead leaves. There could be signs of boring, such as sawdust and dried sap. Peeling the bark back reveals dark lines in the sapwood beneath. Stricken trees attract additional redbay ambrosia beetles and other beetle species. The black twig borer is another Asian ambrosia beetle that attacks redbays and other trees, but it only kills isolated branches. Deciduous sassafras turn brown or display their bright fall color early and lose their leaves. The fungus seems to spread through interconnected roots in sassafras and avocado groves, and may be able to do so in pondberry as well.
 
Individual trees can be protected with fungicide for one to one and a half years at a time and insecticides and beetle-killing fungi can reduce the beetle population, but there is no way to protect an entire forest. So far there don't seem to be any parasites available in Asia to naturally control redbay ambrosia beetles, in contrast to emerald ash borer. In 2006 all infested trees on public and private lands on Jekyll Island, Georgia were removed in an attempt to get rid of the beetle, but the beetle remained in 2007. Transporting untreated wood and live plants long distances is very risky, but live plants and wood from trees in the laurel family especially should not be transported out of or through infested areas. Amazingly, while NC had county quarantines and now a state quarantine against emerald ash borer, there does not seem to be a quarantine against laurel wilt (see www.dontmovefirewood.org/the-problem/state-state-information/north-carolina.html ) and some infested states lack regulations. Maybe the rationale is that redbay wood is not often cut and transported.
 
The beetles and fungus can live in a dead tree for more than a year, and, ideally, infested wood should be chipped, burned, or buried on site. Leaving infested wood exposed in a dump allows redbay ambrosia beetles to reproduce and the fungus could be picked up by other beetle species. In a study, no beetles or fungus were found 2 days after chipping, but the wood still should not be considered clean. Covering a pile of chips with plastic kills the beetles, but the chips could attract new beetles and should not be transported. Advice to Florida avocado growers claims that high-speed mechanical pruning equipment does not spread laurel wilt, but hand saws can. Wounds such as pruned branches attract beetles. Cutting roots linking trees in infested groves using trenchers, etc. might help protect trees such as sassafras once an infection starts in a grove. Coppicing might allow homeowners to keep trees alive, but at a smaller size.

Redbays if not other trees can resprout from the ground after the tops are killed and there are seeds in the soil, so they probably don't face extinction, but this new growth can get re-infected as it gets larger. Strangely, redbays often re-sprout from the roots, while thicket-forming sassafras often re-sprout from the trunk. When people talk of trees being killed by disease, it is usually unclear if they mean the entire tree is dead or if the roots are still alive, so that regeneration is possible. Also according to the Georgia Forestry Commission, dead redbays rot faster than sassafras, but sassafras wood is also supposed to be rot-resistant. Researchers are testing resistant varieties and storing germplasm for future restoration, though it may be hard to store redbay seeds longterm.

Fear of laurel wilt or other new pests should not result in the killing of healthy trees. The situation may be the same as with emerald ash borer, where studies have shown that preemptively removing ash trees is more expensive than waiting and does not stop the borer. I might have seen this happen in Durham in December, and I am not advocating pointlessly hastening the downfall of these trees.

Redbay Ecology and Culture
 
Redbay and related trees are important members of forests in the coastal plain and barrier islands and are valuable for both wildlife and humans. Redbay grows naturally in the coastal plain from southern Delaware to East Texas and into southern Arkansas, as well as the Bahamas, so I don't have a lot of personal experience with it here in the Piedmont. It typically grows near water but also sometimes in drier sandy soil, often under longleaf pines. The Bald Head Woods Reserve conserves rare maritime forest on the coast of NC, where redbay is or was an understory tree making up about 11.4% of the vegetative cover, while in Florida's Everglades, redbays make up 30% of the canopy in forested areas, and possibly more in certain habitats. The loss of redbays could greatly change ecosystems, such as by opening gaps that non-native plants will fill. Redbays can grow up to 70' tall and 3' wide and are valued as ornamentals and were used to reclaim phosphate mines. Swamp bay is similar, possibly just a subspecies of redbay, and grows in swamps over about the same range. Silkbay is another subspecies or a separate species, found in oak-pine scrub habitat in Florida.
 
US animals very threatened by the laurel wilt epidemic are Palamedes swallowtails, large black butterflies with yellow markings whose caterpillars eat mainly redbay, three tiny leafmining moths in the Phyllocnistis genus, and the redbay psyllid (Trioza magnoliae), an insect that forms swollen galls on redbay leaves. Palamedes swallowtails feed only on redbay and possibly sassafras; in experiments their caterpillars can feed on exotic camphortrees, but females don't know to lay eggs on these Asian trees. A study in Mississippi found that the swallowtails were three times less common where laurel wilt had been around for three years or longer. Palamedes swallowtails are an important pollinator of the yellow-fringed orchid (Platanthera ciliaris), and possibly related orchids with deep flowers, though the orchid also grows where these swallowtails are absent, including in the Triangle and in western NC. Spicebush swallowtails are another pollinator, and also depend on trees in the laurel family. Few other animals seem to feed on redbay leaves, and they have alternatives. Avocado weevils eat plants in the laurel family, and despite their name, might prefer redbays. Deer and black bears eat the leaves and fruit. The fruit is bitter, but is eaten by turkeys and many other birds, while bobwhites and a seed beetle eat redbay seeds. 
 
Fresh or dried leaves can be used like bay leaves in cooking. Redbay is a potential graft for avocados and a source of disease resistance through crossbreeding. According to Plants for a Future (pfaf.org), redbay had many uses in Seminole herbal medicine, such as treatment of constipation, rheumatism, fever, and to induce abortion. Bays in general are very important in Seminole and Miccosukee traditional medicine and ceremonies in Florida. Its red wood polishes well and is used in cabinetry and other interior uses and boats, but the wood is strong but brittle and straight trees are rare.

Sassafras leaves taking on fiery colors in the fall ©


Sassafras Ecology and Culture
 
Sassafras is an important but probably overlooked tree that grows throughout much of the eastern US, from southern Maine and Michigan to East Texas and the Florida Panhandle. It can grow 90' tall, 6' across, and live 1000 years (longer than oaks or UNC's ancient Davie Poplar, a huge tuliptree), but around here they are usually 15' tall or shorter. The best and most public specimen I can think of is a pretty grove of saplings about 15' tall where Barbee Road crosses over I-40 in Durham. Sassafras have very distinctive soft and aromatic leaves, which can be oval, mitten-shaped, trident-shaped, and rarely five-lobed, probably depending on the amount of shade. Sassafras fills different niches across its large range, but around here they often grow along fencerows and as understory trees in somewhat moist and rich soil near streams and on hillsides. Sassafras is somewhat common in the Triangle, but might escape notice because it is usually small.
 
Many insects feeding on sassafras, including colorful and well-known spicebush swallowtails and Promethea, Cecropia, Io moths, and several less well-known moths, sassafras borers (a long-horned beetle), and other insects, but most or all of them have options if many sassafras succumb to laurel wilt. Deer, rabbits, and groundhogs also browse on sassafras. Black bears, fox squirrels, turkeys, bobwhites, robins, towhees, mockingbirds, catbirds, pileated woodpeckers, bluebirds, phoebes, and other birds eat the late summer or fall fruit.
 
Leaves can be eaten fresh and gumbo filé and soup thickener is made from dried and powdered shoots. Tea is made by boiling the washed roots and adding sugar or using the flowers. Twigs were boiled, mixed with molasses, and fermented for beer. Various parts of sassafras were used against many illnesses, and It had such a reputation that it was a principal export of Jamestown and other English colonies. It is probably more useful for its taste than as a cure, and has been used in soap, perfumes, and flavoring. Sassafras' popularity came to an end when the FDA classified its oil, safrole, as carcinogenic, though the risk might be overstated. Safrole is used to make the drug ecstasy, but the oil is usually harvested from related trees. Sassafras is also a source of dye. Sassafras wood is fragrant and was used in beds and chicken coops in an attempt to repel pests, as well as for posts, railroad ties, barrels, buckets, furniture, finishing, boats, and dugout canoes, as it resists rot and shrinkage.     
A grove of miniature sassafras in January ©
 
Laurel Wilt and Imperialist Globalization

Laurel wilt is a disaster that could have been prevented and is only one of several invasive pests harming trees in the US in recent years, and non-natives species that run wild are a major problem worldwide, rarely highlighted by opponents of “free trade.” Changes in global trade patterns have caused trends in the organisms that reach the US and become established, despite the enactment of Federal regulations since 1912. A 2010 study (Historical Accumulation of Nonindigenous Forest Pests in the Continental United States, posted online) found that about 2.5 established non-native forest pests were detected per year from 1860 to 2006 (though studies of aquatic and other habitats have found accelerating colonization rates), but the most damaging pests (all 16 microbes and 62 insects, 14% of the insect total of 455 species) were discovered at a rate of one about every 2 to 2.5 years. The rate varied by how the pests live, so the highest rate of detection of leaf eating pests in the USA was around the 30's, while sap-feeding insects peaked in the early 1900s, but had a smaller secondary peak in the late 20th century that the study left unexplained. Discovery of high-impact pests and phloem vessel and woodboring insects has greatly increased since the 80's. 56% of the new insects detected between 1980 and 2006 were in this borer category. 56% of the high-impact pests with known detection dates came before 1930 and then fewer were detected per year until the trend greatly reversed around 1990, so that 24% of the total were detected after 1990. Since 1990 an average of 1.2 high-impact pests have been found per year, almost three times the rate from 1860 to 1990. 44% of the insects found between 1999 and 2006 were in the high-impact category. The study suggests that the rate has increased because of the use of wood in containerized shipping and heightened vigilance. In Canada detections peaked in the 40's-50's but only declined in the 80's, which a study attributed to new laws across the border in the US and a 1976 Canadian phytosanitary law, but I wonder if this could also relate to Canada's changing relations with US and British imperialism, effecting who Canada trades with and what laws are made.

Globalization seeks to 'flatten' the world, and in a sense that could mean our forests will be flattened, in exchange for greater business profits. Any long-distance trade and travel gives exotic organisms a chance to hitch a ride, but offshoring factories just to exploit workers and resources in other countries and importing labor rather than paying higher wages to attract workers who are already here increases the chance that something disastrous will become established. American species, from goldenrods to largemouth bass, likewise cause problems when transported to new places. In the Eastern US there has already been significant to catastrophic damage to American chestnuts, elms, Fraser fir, hemlocks, ashes, American beech, flowering dogwoods, butternut, black walnut, bays, sassafras, Western soapberry, and other trees, and serious threats to oaks and pines are waiting in the wings, in addition to damage caused by bad land management, the extinction of native animals that were beneficial for plants, competition with non-natives, air pollution, and climate change. Harm to trees in turn affects other plants and animals and the human inhabitants of this forested region.

 
National Invasive Species Awareness Week is February 27-March 3 ( www.nisaw.org/ )!

Some links about laurel wilt:

ncforestservice.gov/forest_health/forest_health_laurelwiltfaq.htm

terrain.org/articles/22/cerulean.htm

About ambrosia beetles:


About sassafras:
 
About redbay:
 
About the Palamedes swallowtail:

entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/palamedes_swallowtail.htm

General non-native issues:
 
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