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help with plants during winter.
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Janet wrote: It's also unclear how many of the claims of ecological harm are actually justified. Japanese knotweed is, in many places, and R. ponticum can be, but I have never seen Himalayan balsam form monocultures. My suspicion is that even R. ponticum is only a major ecological problem in a few areas - though it may be a bloody nuisance to humans more widely, just like nettles, bindweed and so on. It certainly is an ecological problem in west Scotland; in woodland it smothers natural regeneration of native plants, particularly worrying as older trees die naturally. I accept that it can be - what I am saying is that the frequent claims that it usually (or even always) is are almost always made without any attempt at providing justification. Inter alia, it is an undershrub in most climax woodland, and I have have both seen it NOT smothering regeneration and seen no data that it does under such circumstances. It's also a host plant of phytopthera as older trees die naturally. It's also a host plant of phytopthera kernoviae and ramorum http://ucanr.org/sites/sod5/files/147415.pdf As are many plants. It's unclear to what extent that is demonisation. I have looked at several papers describing its harmfulness, but all of the decent ones have pointed out that quite a few conditions are needed for that, and several describing its distribution. But I have never seen one analysing how widely it is an ecological problem. I have seen it being so, myself, but only on a small scale - however, that is also true for Japanese knotweed. And, as I say, as far as I can discover, several plants (mainly Himalayan balsam and bracken, but also Oxford ragwort, Buddleia davidii and others) have be claimed to be ecological problems, but without any attempt at providing evidence and (in my experience) without justification. Yes, they can be bloody nuisances to humans, but that is not the same. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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