Dear Christian, Just today an amateur gardener friend asked me to identify a plant that was beginning to invade his yard from his neighbors. It is our local Cardamine sp. C. bulbosa? Here it is called "bitter cress." It is one of the nastiest weeds that I have encountered here. I do not use Roundup, but I have found that hand weeding has some effect on it. The problem with our species is that, if you don't root it out before it goes to seed, you have lost the battle because it shoots out the seeds when the pods are ripe. I would eat it , except that it is extremely bitter, even when it is young. And if I had an infestation of Worsleya, especially the white one, or of the pink Pamianthe, or the red Hymenocallis, I think I would probably also choose hand weeding. Dell in SE Pennsylvania ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Lachaud" <christian.lachaud@gmail.com> To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 5:22:21 PM Subject: [pbs] Cardamine hirsuta Dear all, I would like to ask your advise about Cardamine hirsuta. Few gardener friends and I have noticed that roundup herbicide activates the seeds of Cardamine hirsuta, that are asleep in the soil (by the way, I ignore how long the seeds of this plant survive asleep). In areas that were free of Cardamine the previous years, treated with roundup during the summer, a dense population of this plant is sure to be found next spring. However, this burst has nothing to do with cleanness of the area after herbicide application, because other places manually weeded will never exhibit the phenomenon. Roundup application and Cardamine infestation is so highly correlated that people here use to say that roundup "makes it come". I know that there has been some cases of genetic pollution from GMO into wild species through pollen. I ignore if some GMOs requiring roundup to get their seeds activated do exist ? If yes, wouldn't this example be one such case of genetic pollution accident ? Have people observed this phenomenon elsewhere in the world ? It is worth asking the question since some people eat Cardamine hirsuta and advertise it as delicious. However, if it had been turned accidentally into a wild GMO requiring roundup to wake up and grow, would it be that safe for human health ? Any comments, ideas, and tracks will be much appreciated - Many thanks. *Dr. Christian M. Lachaud, PhD* _________________ http://www.saffron-crocuses.com/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/