On 03/16/2024, the Great Neck Branch dedicated their time to volunteering at Bayard Cutting Arboretum. We became part of the early response team fighting invasive species in New York state parks. It’s imperative to do early and rapid response because invasive species can take hold and ruin an entire ecosystem in weeks or even days. For those unaware, an invasive species is a species not native to the area it was introduced in and therefore has no natural predators. These species will be introduced to an area by accident or on purpose and will ravage the local ecosystem if left unchecked. Today’s plant is the Lesser Celandine, also known as the fig butter cup. It sprouts into yellow flowers and has heart-shaped leaves. We spent the first 30 minutes preparing and getting the sight image of the plant. Then we spent the better part of 2 hours systematically uprooting and throwing out Lesser Celandine. We did a fantastic job and uprooted most of them. But by the nature of invasive species, they will come back and take over again and when they take over we will be back to take care of them.
Participating members:
-Kevin Zhang, Zoe Xia, Andrew Qian, Shaoyu Guo, Syro Tan, Steven Ni, Bob Xia, Yingxiang(Xavier) Liu, Felicia Liu, Yuya Liu, Shiyue Zhang, Maggie Xiao, Starron Tang, Ankie Huang, Ang Chen(2.5hrs)
