Press

ALBANY, NY -- There's a rare plant emerging in New York state, thanks in part to an unconventional gardening tool: the sports utility vehicle.

Botanists at the New York State Museum recently found terrestrial starwort -- considered extremely endangered in New York state -- growing in unexpected numbers in Sterling Forest in Orange County, where they are documenting the plants of the new State Park as part of an on-going State Museum project.

"The tiny plants, resembling green pinheads on a string, had only been known to grow in three places in the State until recently," Richard Mitchell, the State Botanist, said today. Now, they've been found in at least a dozen places. Terrestrial starwort prefers moist, muddy conditions and does well around water and pastures in the South and Midwest.

"It's apparently invading New York," Mitchell said, attributing the plant's success to the warm, moist winter. It has also been spotted in areas frequented by bears, which seem to be fertilizing the plant with their droppings.

"What it portends is that southern plants may be migrating northward due to global warming," Mitchell said.

While the existence of the aquatic plants neither harms nor helps the environment, Mitchell their new occurrences an oddity especially since they seem to thrive in trafficked areas, flourishing in ruts and puddles created by trucks and sports utility vehicles. "The seeds are apparently being picked up in the treads of the vehicles and carried to new disturbed roadways," Mitchell said.

In addition to other documented sites, the plants were most recently found near Greenwood Lake in Orange County, at Olana, the state historical site in Columbia County and along the Hudson River near the Greene County-Ulster County line. The Natural Heritage Program currently lists this plant in the most endangered category (S1). Its rarity status will now be reduced to a lower level. "I will stop short of making management recommendations that include bears and SUVs," Mitchell said.