LESSONS FROM LUPINES

Every Maine school child is likely familiar with Miss Rumphius. Wanting to emulate her grandfather, Miss Rumphius travels the world and returns to live by the sea. The one task she has trouble with is fulfilling his charge to make the world more beautiful, until, with the help of birds and the wind, her lupine crop spreads up the seaside hills. Native or not, lupine have become part of the mystique of Maine.

It is not, however, part of the native landscape of Acadia National Park, which has a mandate from Washington, D.C., to protect and preserve such landscapes. As part of that mission, park personnel decided to get rid of small patch of lupine on the Park Loop road that was spreading toward nearby wetlands. Although the flower was not on a list of the park’s most notorious invasive species, this plot was targeted because it was small enough to be easily eradicated. Lupine, while common on the coast, are not prevalent in Acadia.

Public outcry over the lupine massacre put a stop to this work. A major mistake was that the flowers were cut down before the scope of their threat was fully known and before a plan was developed to deal with the criticism that was inevitable when a symbol of Maine summer was chopped down. Park officials have belatedly traded their weed whacker for scientific journals. They plan to research whether the lupine invader is harming native landscapes. If it isn’t, it may be left alone. If it is, let’s figure out a way to get it back in the “isn’t” column.

Park Resource Manager David Manski is right that this incident should be used for positive results. Invasive species are a serious problem in Maine. Much state time, effort and money has gone into controlling milfoil. The mention of zebra mussels strikes fear in fishermen. Lupine, because they are pretty and immortalized in children’s books and on t-shirts, aren’t seen by the public as so problematic. Using the flowers that have so much public support to call attention to the dangers of invasive species could be a good move.

Maine has a long tradition of adopting non-natives as their own. Take Barbara Cooney, the author of Miss Rumphius and recipient of the Maine Library Association’s first Lupine Award, and Robert McCloskey. Then there’s former Gov. Angus King.

Surely, lupine and Acadia National Park can co-exist.