Folks As An Act of Nature

It’s funny how far we’ve managed to distance ourselves from nature. For big city dwellers, where stepping in a pile of dog crap is about as natural as they get, it’s not so surprising. It’s not acceptable, but it’s not surprising. What is surprising is that sometimes even nature-lovers fail to recognize themselves for the bits of nature that they are. Take, for example, Purple Loosestrife, Japanese Honeysuckle and orchids.

Huh?

When a hurricane sweeps across Florida, it is an act of nature. A big, aggressive, destructive act of nature. It might also serve as a Johnny Appleseed of sorts, spreading the seeds of an orchid species that has never before grown on the North American continent. (Orchid lovers have to wait 7 years to discover what, if any new orchids species have arrived.) This is all perfectly acceptable. It’s an act of nature. But when a gardener brings, from another continent, a new plant species to the garden, such as Purple Loosestrife or Japanese Honeysuckle, well that’s another story, isn’t it? It’s not an act of nature at all, particularly when the results are as disastrous as those associated with these two plants. It’s premeditated carelessness. Ignorance. Shortsightedness. Selfishness. But not an act of nature.

Wrong.

Eugene Schieffelin, having 100 starlings shipped to New York City in 1891, like the New England gardener who first planted Purple Loosestrife in the garden, is no less an act of nature than Hurricane Camille.

Perhaps the consequences cloud the issue (but allow me my finger wagging). Who wants to be considered an act of nature when the results lead to the destruction of the environment, even if only in little bits? And those are the consequences.

Starlings and Gypsy moths are perhaps two of the best known examples of new species introduced in our country, without natural predators, free to wreak havoc on the environment. The same is true of Purple Loosestrife and Japanese Honeysuckle, one a showy wetland species, the other a whiff of tropical perfume.

Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is one of the loveliest wildflowers around: magenta blossoms growing in a dense spike, the plants growing in large colonies. Who would think something so unabashedly gorgeous could be so harmful?

This Eurasian species is very aggressive, reproducing from the roots as well as from the up to 300,000 seeds a single inflorescence can produce. Growing outside the balanced ecosystem it evolved in, it is crowding out other wetland plant species, which in turn have a negative effect on wildlife. Beautiful Purple Loosestrife is considered so harmful to wetland environments, it is against the law to sell it at nurseries, and because it cross-pollinates so enthusiastically with native loosestrife species, those are often unavailable as well.

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