The early American botanist William Bartram described many plants and animals in his late 18th century travels in the southeastern United States. Although Bartram’s descriptions have often been used as a primary basis for defining presence and extent of native species and ecosystems in this region, the floating freshwater aquatic plant, Pistia stratiotes ("water lettuce"), has long stood out as a notable exception. Described by Bartram in numerous locations and in large abundances throughout the St. Johns River and Suwannee River watersheds in what is now the southeastern State of Florida, management agencies have nevertheless classified and managed P. stratiotes as an invasive exotic species since the mid 20th century. While there was at one time some uncertainty about the spatio-temporal origins of P. stratiotes dispersal into Florida, paleolimnological data now conclusively show that P. stratiotes has been present in the Florida peninsula since at least 13,200 BP. Moreover, recent phylogenetic studies strongly imply that P. stratiotes is one of the most ancient native habitat types within Florida’s highly unique artesian spring run systems, and there is at least some circumstantial evidence to suggest that decades of management based on “mistaken identity” has adversely affected spring run fauna – and even other flora – that show strong affiliations to habitat created by P. stratiotes. At the same time, phylogenetics data also suggest that at least one – perhaps two – non-native genotypes of P. stratiotes have been cryptically introduced into Florida, although little is yet known about how the different genotypes differ ecologically and/or whether they are hybridizing in the field. This curious example may provide some insights into the underlying complexities – and limitations of “just so” stories – about terms like "invasive," "exotic," and "native" within ecosystem management discourses, especially when the observed ecological behavior of a species might conflict with overly romantic visions of the pristine.