The License Plate That's Making People Upset

greetings everyone I'm Adam Harrison I've got an interesting video for you today we are going to talk about a license plate yes a license plate but not just any old license plate we are going to talk about a brand new license plate that surprisingly is a bit controversial and it's making some people upset so this is a newly issued Pennsylvania license plate available for passenger cars and trucks and it features a flower and several insects so why on Earth is this license plate to making people upset well as you know the learn your land Channel doesn't really talk about automobiles too often but we do talk about nature and ecology and the controversy with this license plate has everything to do with a particular topic that's pretty hot right now in ecological circles and that topic is native versus non-native species the biggest complaint that people have regarding this new license plate is that it features a flower that's not native to Pennsylvania and that flower is purple coneflower echinacea purpuria purple coneflower According to some people is a really poor choice for a Pennsylvania license plate because it sends the wrong message our state flower should be on the plate people say or any other flower that's native to Pennsylvania but not in introduced plant like purple coneflower now I have a few thoughts on the issue and I'd like to share them with you today and I'll start out by saying that if a nature themed license plate is capable of making a person upset then I wonder about that person's relationship with meaningful challenges in life having said that nowhere on the license plate does it say anything about Native species the point of the license plate according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or PennDOT is to generate money for the pollinator habitat program fund which helps to reinvigorate the populations of insects which pollinates plant life yes native plants support pollinators but the truth is many non-native plants do too now we are making assumptions here and we're assuming that the flower depicted on the license plate is actually purple coneflower echinacea purpuria obviously the flower on the plate is a cone flower in the echinacea genus but nowhere on PennDOT's website does it State what species of Echinacea this is it can could be another coneflower perhaps one that is undoubtedly native to Pennsylvania and that species is smooth purple coneflower echinacea levagada now smooth purple coneflower no longer grows wildly in Pennsylvania because it has been extirpated or removed from the state but the species still grows elsewhere in the U.S if the image does depict smooth purple coneflower then no one really has to be upset because smooth purple coneflower is technically a native Pennsylvania species but let's assume that the flower on the plate is purple coneflower echinacea purpuria the intention of a license plate is to generate funds for pollinator habitats and wouldn't you know it purple coneflower is undoubtedly a fantastic plant for pollinators a variety of insects including bumblebees honeybees long tongued bees bee flies and butterflies love spending time on and around purple coneflower we are also assuming that echinacea papuria is not native to Pennsylvania according to the USDA plan its database this species is native to Pennsylvania but some people don't like using this database to determine what's native and what's not some people like using another resource called bon app or the biota of North America program when we consult Bon app we see that echinacea propuria is native to the United States but it's not native to Pennsylvania it's adventive meaning it has been introduced into Pennsylvania but it's not well established on its own yet okay so Bon app does not consider purple coneflower to be native to Pennsylvania but the plant is native to counties pretty close to Pennsylvania according to Bon app purple coneflower is native to this County right here Carroll County which is located only 23 miles from the border of Western Pennsylvania and if we head north to this County in Ohio Lake County where purple coneflower is also native then the border of Western Pennsylvania is just a few more miles away 20 27.7 miles to be exact what this means is that if the Western border of Pennsylvania was shifted only 30 miles west when it was politically established in the late 1700s then no person today would be complaining about this license plate but let's forget about political boundaries for just a second because a political boundary is just one kind of boundary there are other boundaries that we could recognize like physiographic boundaries the Eastern Ohio counties where purple coneflower grows are located within physiographic provinces that extend into Pennsylvania physiographic provinces are geographic regions with distinct physical features and land forms Carroll County is located in a physiographic province called the Appalachian Plateau Lake County is located in two physiographic provinces the Appalachian Plateau and the central lowland both of these physiographic provinces extend into Pennsylvania now I get it these physiographic provinces are large and they Encompass a lot of land much more land than a single state does so it's not always useful to base the native status of a plant on its physiographic Province but it is useful to understand that other boundaries besides State boundaries exist and when we observe these other boundaries then our Concepts and ideas and perhaps even fears of what's native and what's not change but let's obey the political boundaries for now and let's accept the current dividing lines between the states today I don't think it would be too extreme to suggest that if we go back far enough in time purple coneflower could be native to what is now Pennsylvania but over time it became extirpated or removed from the state let me explain my reasoning when we talk about the native status of a particular species we do so within the context of time and space we already talked about space Pennsylvania Ohio Appalachian Plateau central lowland but what about time what year do we unanimously recognize as the cutoff year for a particular species to be considered native is it 1492 or could it be further back in time interestingly there is no General consensus on this issue the reason I am tossing out the idea that purple coneflower could have once grown naturally in what is now Pennsylvania is that Prairie plants in North America and purple coneflower is a prairie plant migrated East during a warming period that took place approximately 5 000 years ago this is why a plant like Prairie smoke a member of the Rose family that grows in prairies and open woodlands in the Western and Midwestern portions of the continent also grows in a few isolated pockets in eastern habitats for example in Upstate New York Prairie smoke migrated East when the climate changed the current populations of prairie smoke that are now found in eastern habitats became isolated from their core Prairie populations when the climates became cooler and wetter when we consider purple coneflower I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that it too could have extended its range Eastward into what is now Pennsylvania thousands of years ago when the climate warmed but it contracted its range and disappeared from Pennsylvania when conditions became cooler and wetter if something like that did happen then the status of Echinacea purpuria would be similar to the status we reserve for echinacea leyvigata native to Pennsylvania but extirpated lastly I should probably address the honeybee on the license plate because if we are talking about Native species well the honeybee isn't native to Pennsylvania in fact it's not native to the United States all I'll say is that honeybees are fantastic pollinators and if we like honey if we eat honey if we eat any of the dozens of food plants that are pollinated by honeybees apples almonds broccoli melons squash and others then we should probably express our deepest gratitude for honeybees and not to condemn them so I think that's all I got on the license plate issue so I think I'll stop here and I'll ask you what do you think is this license plate worth getting upset over is purple coneflower a poor choice for a Pennsylvania license plate that was designed to raise funds for pollinator habitats if you've got any thoughts questions concerns General pains the comment section is a good place to leave them thank you so much for watching this video I appreciate it if you enjoyed watching it please subscribe to the learn your land YouTube channel and if you want to stay in touch I encourage you to head on over to learn your land.com and sign up for the email newsletter thanks again for watching I will see you on the next video [Music] foreign

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 58,650

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Id: MjjzT3D9GGs

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023