MONTGOMERY, Ala.

The State of Alabama has just dedicated $6 million in federal stimulus money to combat a certain invasive weed, and the two men chosen to lead this ground war can already hear you laughing. Millions of dollars to kill some weeds? Sounds like another good-old-boy boondoggle. Heh-heh-heh.

But we’re not talking dandelions here. This weed is the killer weed, the nearly indestructible weed, The Weed From Another Continent  a weed that evokes those old science-fiction movies in which clueless citizens ignore reports of an alien invasion, leaving the heroes to rail in frustration:

The fools! Don’t they understand? This is cogongrass!

Two weeks ago, our two heroes began operating the Alabama Cogongrass Control Center out of the drabbest office in the drab Alabama Forestry Commission building, here in Montgomery. The small room is so spare, with its empty bookshelves and bare wood-paneled walls, that it seems to exist in black and white, save for a large, color-coded map of Alabama on a table.

Dozens of tiny green bubbles dot the map, particularly throughout the bottom third of the state. Each one represents a GPS-identified location of the enemy: cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica), also known as the Perfect Weed, and considered one of the 10 worst weeds in the world.

It can take over fields and forests, ruining crops, destroying native plants, upsetting the ecosystem. It is very difficult to kill. It burns extremely hot. And its serrated leaves and grainy composition mean that animals with even the most indiscriminate palates  goats, for example  say no thanks.