Dames Rocket and the Native Question

The other day, I was enjoying the wonderful smell coming from the strong growth of phlox growing in the woods in back of my house when a neighbor of mine stopped by. When I remarked on the flowers’ smell, she turned up her nose, and told me that what I thought was phlox is in fact not phlox at all. It turns out to be a plant from Eurasia called dame’s rocket which is commonly confused with the native woodland phlox.

Here’s an easy way to tell the difference: Look at the number of petals on the flower. A woodland phlox has five petals, and dame’s rocket has four. Also, dame’s rocket is taller, and the leaves are alternating as they go up the stem, not opposite from each other.

Now that those flowers are identified, I’m feeling kind of mixed up about them. You see, Dame’s rocket is listed as a noxious weed, an invasive non-native species, whereas woodland phlox is described as a non-noxious, non-weed, non-invasive native.

Learning the truth about those purple flowers, I wonder, how am I supposed to feel about them now? The horticultural orthodoxy seems to be that I should now realize that these plants are an enemy to be eradicated, just like the non-native garlic mustard that I have been pulling out by the roots for two years now.

Of course, the flowers of dame’s rocket are just as pretty as those of woodland phlox. According to the sources I’m reading, that’s supposed to be part of the problem. Dame’s rocket is so pretty that its seeds have been put into packets and sold to gardeners across the United States. It’s our attraction to the dame’s rocket flowers that makes them so invasive.

Looking at those flowers, I realized that I’m a non-native myself. Or, at least I can be described as one, depending on how you define a human non-native.

Some people in my village define a non-native as someone who wasn’t born there. I’ve lived here in this village for two years now. In a lot of people’s eyes, that makes me a newcomer. On the other hand, I’ve lived in that part of New York State for most of my life. I went to high school just an hour to the north. So, does that make me a regional native, but a village non-native?

I’ve been doing some geneological research It turns out that one of my great great great grandfathers lived in the town just to the north of the village where I’m living now, but back in the 1800s. Does that make me a native, returned to my home soil?

Hardly. After all, I am of European descent. Some of my ancestors were in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the early 1600s, but even these Massachusetts Bay Colony people in my family came from elsewhere – mostly Dorchester, in England.

Where did they come from before Dorchester? The English people are a mix of people from many different places, as our language attests. Besides, another branch of my family is from Prussia. That means that, even if I were to move to England or Prussia, I would be genuinely native in neither place.

How about that garlic mustard and dame’s rocket, then? How long will they have to live here before they are regarded as natives? One hundred years more? A thousand years more? Will they never be natives, ever?

I can tell you one thing for sure: They’re not leaving. I’ve spent two years pulling up that garlic mustard, and it’s as thick as ever. Even if I could get it out of my woods, it would come right back from my neighbors’ land.

I don’t know what to think about who’s native and who’s not, but I know this: Nothing is as simple any more as distinguishing between a noxious weed and a native plant.

Poison ivy, after all, is classified as a native plant – one hundred percent natural.