Maryland Geocaching Society

A note to let potential cache hiders know of a current restriction on cache placements in Patapsco Valley State Park:

To quote David Chrest, Assistant Park Manager who is currently in charge of geocache approvals in Patapsco:

"We have an invasive weed – “Wavy Leaf Basket Grass” – that begins seeding in June. To prevent the spread of this invasive weed, we need to limit all geocaches in the park to south of Woodstock Rd."

This means the McKeldin area is off limits as is the Patapsco park area west of Marriottsville Rd.

Wow that is just crazy how plants can take over an entire area if not carefull....You ever see the bamboo gardens that pop up from nowhere?

Yep, I like bamboo groves...

Too bad they make it impossible for other plant life to grow..I've seen trees taken down because of bamboo

Sue-Cat wrote:Yep, I like bamboo groves...

I hate bamboo. It just looks so .... alien.

I've seen some massive bamboo groves spring up in the middle of parks, taking over all native plant life. One of largest I recall is in Chickie's Rock Park near Lancaster. Amazing the size that the plant can grow to also.

LP

bargle brought up this topic on our afternoon sunshine break and I realized that I had encountered this weed before without even knowing what it was. My log entry excerpt from the "Cat Cache":

"I went down the trail further until I could find a safe place to go off trail and climbed up the hill there. As soon as I left the trail, I walked through these plants that left a slew of seeds all over my pants. I tried to brush them off but they were all sticky and gooey. I decided to just let them stay there and help nature do its thing by having them fall off as I walked. Not all of them came off so I'm doing a special load of laundry tonight with only my geocaching clothes."

I guess I shouldn't have "let nature do its thing". Oops.

Hose502 wrote:bargle brought up this topic on our afternoon sunshine break and I realized that I had encountered this weed before without even knowing what it was. My log entry excerpt from the "Cat Cache":

"I went down the trail further until I could find a safe place to go off trail and climbed up the hill there. As soon as I left the trail, I walked through these plants that left a slew of seeds all over my pants. I tried to brush them off but they were all sticky and gooey. I decided to just let them stay there and help nature do its thing by having them fall off as I walked. Not all of them came off so I'm doing a special load of laundry tonight with only my geocaching clothes."

I guess I shouldn't have "let nature do its thing". Oops.

hmmm, wavy leaf basket grass isn't supposed to start seeding until June though.... was it something else

dnr info page on wavyleaf basket grass: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/wl_basketgrass.asp

Sue-Cat wrote: hmmm, wavy leaf basket grass isn't supposed to start seeding until June though.... was it something else

I forgot to list the date--that entry was from 10/7/2007.

Ohhhh....

We did a cache retrieval here for the DNR. I thought they were being over cautious until I spent the day in the stuff. Although it's pretty, we were covered. We were also careful about the disposal of the seeds.