If you haven’t noticed them before you should keep your eyes open for these highly invasive plants known as Himalayan Orchids. They’re not real orchids, although their flowers look sort of like orchids. They can grow to be nine feet tall — the tallest specimens in this patch of the weeds just off the back road from Track Street to the eastern Access was easily two feet taller than me and I am six-one. They can produce 1,000 seeds per plant and launch them 15 feet from their seed pods. Fortunately they have very shallow roots and can be pulled up easily. We really don’t need these things around here. You can’t eat them and they shade out competing native plants. They arrived in England in the mid 1800s and swiftly spread across Europe. They love riparian areas like ours. I had not seen them in Revelstoke until about two or three years ago and hope someone out there knows when they first arrived here. David F. Rooney photo
