In Defense of Tumbleweeds
Reflections of Ourselves in Coping with an ‘Invasive Species’
by Walt Anderson
Drifting along, like a tumbling tumbleweed. That catchy tune warbled by the Sons of the Pioneers somehow epitomizes nostalgia for the Old West. Never mind that the tumbleweed is a carpetbagger, an interloper, an émigré otherwise known as Russian thistle. I’ve 
heard tell that the Russkies sent it here as a kind of biological weapon, a plague on our plains, a prickly infestation designed to lay waste to our grasslands, to overwhelm us with its ability to take any of our attacks against it and come back stronger than ever. Where is the real truth here?
As an ecologist, I am always suspicious of introduced species. What are they outcompeting? What natives suffer at the advancing wave of heavily armed hordes of aggressive Salsola? (more…)
