Martin Damus wrote:

 >I have seen loosestrife in many wetlands, and I have ye!
> t to see it completely take over any wetland.  It has its margin of habitat requirements, >and in all the places I have seen it it has mixed with the native flora.  No one has yet, >to my knowledge, shown using scientific studies that it is really causing large scale >harm, something I would think is a prerequisite to importing exotic plant-eating beetles >to eradicate it!

We have loads of loosestrife on our property which is right by a major
migration route for ducks. On a fall day, just before hunting season,
there will be hundreds of ducks within 200 feet of the house. We have
lived here for 27 years and the loosestrife has not spread to the
wetlands, as it is supposed to according to the books, but a native
sawgrass is doing its part to do just what the loosestrife is supposed
to. I have pulled one loosestrife plant from the marsh in the past 27
years. It really does not like it there nearly as much as in my clay
soil, well above the waterline. Where I have seen it become intrusive is
with cattails in semi-wet soils, but definitely not marsh. When I first
came in contact with it I read how bad it was and was very concerned
about the marsh. Not any more. I am much more concerned about the
sawgrass which takes over completely and in which no duck could forage.

And it does give a greenish tinged honey which I like. And, as stated by
others, it keeps producing when all others have dried up, which is what
is happening in our area right now.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, ME