GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

12-04-2003, 01:56 AM

In article ,
says...
Warwick scribbled:

I had a run in with him/her a couple of months ago with regard to some
maple seeds I'd picked up on the mountains in Japan.

My point was perfectly well mad if a little uninformed.

And somewhat forthrightly put. It was written in such a way that it
didn't really bring the conversation or the debate along easily. It
*seemed* to me to be an attack rather than a suggestion and we all need
to tread warily when our only medium is plain text allowing little in
the way of grace for misreading.

It accused me of theft and riskig the plant population of the UK by
bringing in such a dangerous alien plant form and ransacked the entire
discussion before posting a triumphant piece of information from Defra
that they considered maple seeds to be of no risk at all and asking
why had I bothered arguing at all with my discussions and why hadn't
*I* gone to Defra and asked them myself.

The point is that you didn't know one way or the other.

I *did* concede at the time that you had a minor point and that it
wasn't an problem we'd considered. As someone of a scietific mind and
married to a scientist in biology it wasn't a risk factor we'd
considered. We knew how much cross traffic there was between the two
coutries with the two climates being similar enough that UK species can
flourish there and are imported and used with similar .jp stuff coming
our way. The chances of infection via our few seeds were so miniscule in
comparison that they should be ignored. That a *tree* species could be
an invader like knotweed was also to be ignored since, unless a wild
hybrid showed up looking spectacular, it too wouldn't be allowed to set
seed was also ignored since trees aren't a fast invader like russian
vine and knotweed.

I still haven't worked out how seeds dropped by trees in public places
turned into theft yet. Maybe I should be drafting in the local police
to get them geared up for the en-masse arrest of the school children
guilty of the theft of all those conkers every year.

As you are not a Japanese citizen you had no right to remove from Japan that
which did not belong to you.

Oh come off it. I probably brought more Japanese dirt back on my shoes
than the weight of those seeds. I *deliberately* brought back the seeds
of course and the dirt came along for the free airplane ride. I also
brought back a *lot* more in bought souvenirs including a camera that
cost less than £200 in Japan and sells for £800 here. As I paid Japanese
prices you want me to pay UK priced duty on it?

As I mentioned in the quoted section. Conkers. Most of them are gathered
from *privately* owned trees be it council owned or overhanging public
roads. There's a church in Byfleet that sheds hundreds of the things
every year and the entire tree and its droppings are eagerly scavenged
for destruction by the local children. The entire tree is on privately
owned land without any overhanging. Do you wnat to arrest the children
for theft?

The seeds I have were picked up on the public highways and byways of
Japan where some of them *may* have taken root if the conditions where
*just* right and the tree dropping them decided to die this winter gone.

But the ones on the mountains and hills? If you went walking in one of
the UK national parks and picked up say a pine cone and persuaded it to
give up seed and sprout would you be looking to pay the government for
the trees you acquired?

If one of these seeds turns out to be as lovely as something like
Garnet, I'll make sure the proceeds go to something like the JET
programme.

My problem isn't with the points you raised, but the way you chose to
raise them. I've been wandering around on usenet for 14 years and you've
manaaged a minor miracle in my books by being so abbrasive that I *want*
to killfile you, but being entertaining enough to not get there

Warwick