Invasive water lettuce found along Brice Prairie shore

Date: 10/08/2015 08:31 AM
From: Fritz <fritz@funk.io>
To: Participating Natural Resource Agencies and Volunteers

Brice Prairie Shoreline Folks:

Kendra Niemec of USFWS told me yesterday that water lettuce has been found along the Brice Prairie shore from the Fred Funk landing down to the USFWS overlook.  The source is commonly home aquarium or decorative pond releases :(

The plant resembles an open floating head of lettuce, with feathery roots.  It is primarily free-floating (not rooted), so it can re-distribute quickly....would be great to get on top of it quickly.
If you find it along your shore pick it up and bag it for destruction.  Probably best not to compost it (I don't know about the fate of seeds)...better to burn or use our bagged garbage system where it presumably gets burned.

Let Kendra know if you find any and where you found it: kendra_niemec@fws.gov

Here's some official info on the species:

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/waterlettuce.shtml
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Invasives/fact/WaterLettuce.html