ECWA Trail Stewards - Weed Information
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Thorns Got To Go

 Photos by Steve Hiltner

Blackberry

            An aggressive native; tasty berries, but tends to take over; sends out long runners; has been known to climb trees on occasion.

Multiflora rose

            An exotic invasive; pretty flowers, but nasty thorns and tends to overpower everything else.

Note: There are two types of native rose growing along the trail, the swamp rose (Rosa palustris), with a few pink flowers in June, and the Carolina rose, also with pink flowers. (Multiflora rose blooms earlier and has white flowers.) The swamp rose is typical of floodplains. The Carolina rose has been introduced to the Reserve as a rescue from dry site prairie remnants elsewhere in the watershed. The Carolina rose is particularly fragrant, and when found on a hot dry day on a desolate roadside, its fragrance can be transforming.

THE CREEPERS

 Photos by Mark Johnson

In people’s yards, most of these use the lawn as home base, then quietly invade nearby flowerbeds while no one is looking.  Along the trail, they range in concentration from a few scattered individuals to a daunting carpet. One of the more satisfying things to do is to pull a single, isolated plant while thinking of all the new offshoots that won’t have to be pulled the next year.  One of the least satisfying activities is trying to remove the hundreds of plants in a large patch.  Mulch or roundup may prove the only time-effective method, but for now leave them be unless truly inspired to do some serious pulling.
Ground ivy (Also called Creeping Charlie or Gill-over-the-ground)
In the mint family, an evergreen, invasive groundcover in lawns and along the creek; blue flowers in spring.

India strawberry (Usually called Indian strawberry, but then it sounds native)
An invasive from India often confused with wild strawberry, but with yellow flowers and inedible berries; probably in your lawn and flower beds. Native strawberry has white flowers.
White clover
Useful in a lawn because of its nitrogen-fixing ability, but spreads around and muddles up the works in a garden or trailside

Black medic
Like white clover in being a low, spreading, exotic legume, but with smaller leaves and small yellow flowers that yield clusters of black seeds. Shoots often radiate from a single stem. 

 GARLIC
 MUSTARD
 INFESTATION

There's a new invader afoot in the watershed. An infestation of garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis) was discovered along Pearl Mill Creek near Duke Street and Trinity Avenue in spring, 2002. This non-native plant is little known and still infrequent in the piedmont, but in northern states it has invaded woodlands and formed dense stands that quickly exclude the native flora. Patches of garlic mustard have been found along Pearl Mill Creek from Trinity Avenue down to the tributary's intersection with the west branch of South Ellerbe Creek near I-85 and Club Boulevard, as well as further downstream along the main branch of Ellerbe Creek, beyond Roxboro Road.
Garlic mustard gains dominance in part by releasing toxins into the soil that impede the growth of other species. Up north, it infests natural areas as well as backyard gardens. It is a biennial, forming rosettes the first year that bloom in April the following year and set seed in June.

ECWA volunteers have removed patches found along Pearl Mill Creek the last two years, but a larger effort will be required to prevent the species from eventually spreading throughout the region.
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