But confrontation is not her style. Instead, what I try to do is to show how beautiful natives can be, and encourage people in that way. Those species are no longer there because local kids are now using the lot as a racetrack for their bikes. These exotics range from species inadvertently introduced by humans and their livestock hundreds of years ago, such as yellow star thistle and wild oats, to species which were purposefully introduced, such as eucalyptus. A quick look at the yellow star thistle, one of the state's most aggressive exotics, is both edifying and a bit terrifying.
Star thistle can dominate a variety of habitats and harm or even kill livestock that feed on it.
Joe DiTomaso, a weed researcher in University of California at Davis's Vegetable Crops Department, estimates that between 10 and 15 million acres of California are heavily infested with star thistle. That is, all the native plants in a given area colonized by an invader may eventually perish. And when the native plants perish then the animals and insects of that system go with them. California's rogue's gallery of invasive exotics includes giant reed, French broom, Scotch broom, tamarisk, pampas grass, medusa-head, capeweed, water hyacinth, and hundreds more. As Lowry notes, California is a place where native plants are quickly becoming the exotics.