Staff holds cleanup at Sagamore Hill

Fifteen employees at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site spent one morning last week digging out porcelain berry and other invasive plants from the meadow of the historic cow pasture.

The staffers wearing protective clothing braved poison ivy and ticks to fill 24 large plastic bags of porcelain berry, black locust saplings, young Multiflora rose bushes and Oriental bittersweet.

Porcelain berry, a perennial vine that originated in Northeast Asia and is an invasive species in 12 Northeastern states, has roots that can be an inch thick.

They must be dug out by hand to avoid having the bush re-sprout.