"For Weed Warriors, the Motto Is Endurance"

"To the untrained eye, a weed is just a weed, and few of us can tell a thistle from a teasel. But for Paul Heiple and his team of Weed Warriors, knowing the difference is essential to their work routing out invasive plants that threaten the native species at Edgewood Park, a 500-acre natural preserve that overlooks California’s Silicon Valley."

"Mr. Heiple, a retired geologist, leads a group of about 50 volunteers who spent 4,000 hours last year hunched over the park’s grassland areas digging up culprits like the yellow star thistle, broom, teasel and Italian thistle. They work on behalf of the California Native Plant Society, a nonprofit conservation organization for which Mr. Heiple heads the San Mateo County chapter’s invasive plant group.

I also volunteer on Edgewood Park’s trail patrol, but that job is easy by comparison. Once or twice a week I walk the trails scouting for any safety or maintenance issues and then file a report online. The Weed Warriors, however, engage in regular combat with some 100 nonnative plant species. The work requires a strong back, thick gloves and skill with the hori hori, a Japanese weeding knife with a serrated edge along one side that, in a pinch, could do serious damage in a street fight. "

Jim Witkin reports for the New York Times' Green blog April 19, 2012.