Native Plants
Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?
A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
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Thursday - March 27, 2014
From: Raleigh, NC
Region: Southeast
Topic: Invasive Plants, Non-Natives, User Comments, Grasses or Grass-like
Title: Comments on previous answer on non-native invasives from Raleigh NC
Answered by: JImmy Mills
QUESTION:
https://www.wildflower.org/expert/show.php?id=7827 This answer is incorrect. Please have someone review it to remove the two invasive species you are encouraging people to plant by calling them natives. Shame on you for not double checking, people trust your site!ANSWER:
Thank you for pointing out our error in question 7827! We depend on alert readers like yourself to keep our answers as accurate as possible. I have corrected that answer.
The problem arose from misinterpreting information in in this link from mastergardenerproducts.com. When they said there are three major types of hardy bamboo in North America, I mistakenly transposed that to mean species. As it turns out, Arundinaria is the only genus of bamboo native to the US, and it contains three species native here: Arundadaria gigantea , A. tecta, and A. appalachiana. There are also some non-native Arundinaria species which have naturalized in North America.
According to the USDA Plant Profiles, all three native Arundinaria species occur in North Carolina.
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