By Susan Milius
From Mobile, Ala., at the Botany 2003 meeting
Water gardeners and aquarium enthusiasts need to be warned about recent escapees from their creations that menace wild wetlands, says a Florida botanist.
Rotala rotundifolia turned up uninvited last year in a northern Alabama pond, and it’s moving into Florida canals, according to Kathleen Burks of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee. It belongs to the same family as the notoriously invasive purple loosestrife, which is choking out natives on stream banks across the country. The new Rotala, originally from Asia, grows lush bands of foliage along the water’s edge, blooms in swaths of pink spikes, and also thrives underwater. Aquarists treasure the plant’s rosy foliage, and aquarium dumping probably loosed it on North America, says Burks.