[APWG] New York Times taken over by Aliens? Invasions - Science article

[MALawler at aol.com]

Just to be accurate....the article is written by George Ball...send your  
letters to the editor!  ma
 
 
March 19, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Border War 
By GEORGE BALL
 
Warminster, Pa. 
THE horticultural world is having its own debate over immigration, with some  
environmentalists warning about the dangers of so-called exotic plants from  
other countries and continents "invading" American gardens. These botanical  
xenophobes say that a pristine natural state exists in our yards and that to  
disturb it is both sinful and calamitous. In their view, exotic plants will  
swallow your garden, your neighbors' gardens and your neighbors' neighbors'  
gardens until the ecosystem collapses under their rampant suffocating  growth. 
If anything suffocates us, though, it will be the environmentalists'  
narrowmindedness. Like all utopian visions, their dream beckons us into a  perfect 
and rational natural world where nothing ever changes — a world that  never 
existed and never will.  
Native plants are the survivalists of the botanical world, and in the  
appropriate settings — wilderness areas, home and botanical gardens, public  parks 
and sidewalks — they bless us with their beauty and awe us with their  
tenacity. Our lives would be poor and grim without the strawberry, cranberry,  
columbine and trillium. They've always been here, in the same way that Native  
Americans have been; only their arrival and settlement are more ancient.  
Their presence illustrates a geologic time, about 8,000 years ago, when the  
glaciers receded and unimaginably vast deluges swallowed the surface of the  
future United States — an airplane ride over the Midwest reveals enormous lakes 
 formed by even larger melted ice masses. As the landscape changed, the 
botanical  world sorted itself out, leaving us with the hardy "natives." (It should 
be  noted, though, that many plants now considered natives — like sycamores,  
magnolias and cinnamon — arrived from other continents, just as we did. They 
are  products of adaptation.) 
Like human survivalists, natives are also subject to exploitation by the  
horticultural equivalent of radical fundamentalists. The anti-exotics argue that  
gardens should be populated exclusively by native plants, as if the exotics 
were  trying to enter the flower bed illegally. The consequences of such a 
stand could  be dire. Should we eat no onions or garlic, apples or lemons; feast 
our eyes on  no magnificent tulips or roses — all exotics of Eurasian origin? 
Should Asians  not enjoy their distinctive peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash, 
sunflowers and  corn — all from the Americas?  
Indeed, the world's most popular root crop, potatoes, started life as a  
staple of the Andean people and achieved its first international fame as a slave  
food. By the time it reached France, the "earth apple" was a delicacy likened 
to  truffles; their flowers were featured in tiaras of court ladies. Exotic  
indeed. 
Should we deprive ourselves of petunias, begonias, impatiens and hollyhocks — 
 not a one of them "native"? Must we, on pain of being cast out of the garden 
as  horticultural pariahs, deny the elephant his peanuts? This wouldn't be 
merely  ridiculous. It would compare with the denial of human immigration on 
grounds  that certain ethnic groups breed in numbers "too prolific" for the 
existing  elite to tolerate. Imagine, then, a horticultural ruling class. No 
"invasives"  need apply: let the lily find another valley. Such prohibitions of 
exotic plant  species demonstrate only an elitist snobbery that is as dangerous to 
a free  society as it is to a free botany. 
No one, and certainly no gardener, grows truly destructive invasive plants in 
 his garden. The devastating kudzu in the South, star thistle in the West and 
 purple loosestrife in the East were accidental introductions from Asia, most 
 often mixed with the feed and bedding of livestock. Yet the pro-native,  
anti-exotic partisans also wish us to stop enjoying the charms of harmless and  
beautiful plants like Queen Anne's lace, yarrow and chicory. Aside from  
requiring a bit of weeding, exotics are safe as milk, unless one considers  
gardening a chore rather than a passionate hobby. If so, forget the  forget-me-nots. 
Let's welcome, as spring arrives tomorrow, as many huddled masses of flowers, 
 herbs and vegetables as can fit in our unique melting pot of a nation, 
unrivaled  in its tradition of lush diversity and freedom to grow  rampantly. 
George Ball, a former president of the American Horticultural  Society, is 
the president of the seed and plant company W. Atlee Burpee &  Company.


    *   _Copyright 2006_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) _The New York Times  Compa_ (http://www.nytco.com/) 


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