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As the weather warms and Summit County’s greenery comes back to life, so do harmful plants, and local officials are asking the public to remain informed of invasive species of weeds that can harm local wildlife.
Currently, the state of Colorado has identified dozens of plants a noxious weeds or plants that out-compete natives for light, space and nutrients. Ryan Cook, an invasive plant species manager for Summit County, said that in Summit County many of them are commonly found along trails or on private property. Some of the most common ones include Canadian thistles, musk thistles, mullein an ox eye daisies.
“They all come from different places. For instance, we have Chinese clematis. Obviously it originally came from China,” Cook said. “There’s also Canadian sisal from Canada and Russian knapweed. These plants came from other nations and were introduced into Colorado, and they basically don’t have any natural enemy in the Rocky Mountains. They choke out our native wildlife for water and can sometimes make some of our native flowers go extinct because they’re so aggressive, and they don’t have anything to keep them in check.”
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Noxious weeds are categorized into three lists based on how aggressive they are: List A, List B and List C. Cook said List A weeds are the most aggressive, and the state of Colorado has put 25 types of weeds into List A. In Summit County, there are two types listed in this category, myrtle spurge and orange hawkweed.
“If someone sees, on a hiking trail or private property or something, an A-list weed, the weed department wants to know about it immediately,” Cook said. “We need to get that out of the county, like pronto.”
