Jake wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:41:12 +0000 (GMT), wrote:
In article ,
Mike Lyle wrote:
English bluebells are a big responsibility: the Brit Isles have most
of the world population, and they are vulnerable to hybridisation.
Well, yes and no. They are merely a subspecies, with only 11,000
years of difference from the Spanish. In terms of importance,
that is negligible on a global scale - it's primarily a concern to
parochial English botanists.
The same applies to several other endemic British species, like
the red grouse. I agree that we should avoid destroying them, but
we shouldn't start confusing molehills with mountains.
Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
Perhaps the issue is that the spanish bluebell is aggressive and could
probably satisfy the definition of invasive before too long. Foreign
introductions usually turn out to be a mistake, not just in the UK of
course - Australia's battling cane toads and even camels! Here the
grey squirrel's killing off the red, well at least the virus it
carries is.
Let's not forget that gardeners introduced Japanese Knotweed,
Hilalayan Balsam, the so-called "Oxford Ragwort" and others. OK, maybe
the last was introduced by botanists not gardeners.
I understand Oxford ragwort to have arrived in ships' ballast, M'Lud.
ortunately, Japanese knotweed requires both sexes to set seed, and (ATM)
only the female plants are feral.
I'm worried about the "being" that's being released to combat
knotweed. If the experiment succeeds knotweed will presumably cease to
be a problem but then a horde of "beings" will look for an alternative
food source. It's called evolution I think.
Biological controls control, they don't eradicate, or the control would
be commiting suicide.
I understand that the young shoots of J.K. can be eaten in the same
way(s) as rhubarb - a very useful biological control...
--
Rusty