I would be happy to give you a tour of the site. It is a great place to see all kinds of wild flowers. There are a number of pristine native prairies on the site that have maintained good native populations.

As of today, there is pussytoes, prairie smoke, birds foot violet, lyre leafed rock cress and some sort of sedge actively blooming.

If you would be interested in a visit, you can contact me by email or call my cell.

It just so happens that the blue squill was growing almost right next to the white squill when I took those photos.

A more picky distinction is the stamens: Siberian squill stamens are free (like lilies); striped squill stamens are inside a little tube.

Here’s a picture of the true Siberian squill (assuming HTML works):

After 18 years in the invasive’s trenches I was wondering who in “heck” this Greg Breining was – never heard of him.

I did go to his webpage and discovered he knows how to kayak, knows how to fish, even knows how to count small groups of big shaggy beasts up on Ellesmere Island. He also demonstrates an ability to write and he must be good at it because how else could he have gotten as far as he has spewing pure b… (poorly composted male bovine excrement) and being paid for it? He is right that I sure can’t do that – get paid for b…!

He is not and will not be the first or last “sportsman/nature” writer to wax filletisouffleically about the wonders of nature and really never know carp.

It is clear by the responses to this blog that no one finds Mr. Breining qualified in any way to speak about invasive species except the Mpls Trib – saying way too much about their own qualifications. One thing I know for sure is that regardless of where he has travelled or how many shaggy beasts he has counted, he has never had any clue what he was mindlessly walking all over on his way there. He clearly has not spent much time walking around his home(?) state of Minnesota or if he has, he was walking with his mind, if not with his eyes – closed. When he says it is almost impossible to tell the natives from non-natives, that is more than self evidently true for himself – Greg there is a difference and even someone as boxed in as you can learn it – its called a beginner’s wildflower book!

Being a thousand times more qualified to speak on invasive species, I am done with one excellently self-misinformed “carphugger”.

It still took me a while to figure out what the Trib was up to and it only made sense to me when I realized they were up to nothing. It also revealed their editorial ignorance or at least immaturity.

Nobody there has a clue about invasive species either. But they feel they should say something as it vaguely appears to them of some newsworthiness (and they are the news) and of course they want to present a “balanced” perspective. What better way than to pick up a piece by a highly respected nature writer who challenges people to “think outside of the box” now and then.

First of all they really didn’t “pick it up” but went out to their daily word market and made a purchase – sight unseen. Just like any big box store meat market, that’s what they ended up with – a chunk of industrial farm raised raw meat, injected full of salt flavorings and artificial coloring, completely uninspected (the inspector was let go a long time ago) before being packaged up in a nice plastic wrapper with pretty pictures on it. It will take more than a few mindless opinions to pull out of that pre-packaged box/mind-set.

They also made the assumption – and nearly correct – that nobody really gives a damn anyway.

It is also distressing to me that so many people mindlessly inform themselves in this manner – taking this kind of rubbish as serious news – even state legislators. Any wonder so much misinformed public policy is formulated and legislation passed?

It is the mission of this blog to un-cover at least a few of these seemingly endless public charlatans in all their shapes and forms. By bringing some “qualified” and “balanced” perspectives on these issues we can perhaps begin to pull out of this death spiral we’ve all seem to have found ourselves in lately?

Petyer