St John’s Wort fruit head containing 100s of seeds (W. Pix)
St John’s Wort (StJW) is the most invasive weed that occurs on Mt Majura and Mt Ainslie. Following two LaNina events in a row, 2021/22 has been the worst StJW season in the close to 20 years since Friends of Mt Majura roam the mountain.
The race is on to remove as many of the fruiting St John’s Wort as possible at The Fair project site before the fruits split open and release their seeds. Our focus sites are the north and east fringes of wildflower patch 4 outlined blue and the site around the ‘Scar tree’ outlined green on this map.
We ask volunteers who can help to hand remove fruit heads of St John’s Wort either by pulling out the whole plant (grab the plant as close to the ground as possible and pull) or by snapping off the fruit heads. Please bag all plants with fruit heads or snapped off fruit heads. pick up an empty bag from close to the park entry Tay / Ian Nicol Streets – use the big trash bags or wool bags for convenience. You can either leave the bags with St John’s Wort at the removal site for a later pick up by us or drag the bags to the park entry.
Please bring your own gloves; kitchen (cleaning) gloves are very good for the job.
We continue evening weeding sessions Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 6-7.30 pm; meet at the park entry at 6 pm or go straight to one of the weeding sites listed above; please pick up a bag at the park entry if there are empty bags left.
Waltraud
28 March 2022
Brown fruit heads of St John’s Wort are visible on the right-hand unweeded side at the eastern fringe of Wildflower patch 4 (W. Pix, 23 March 2022).
