Title: Exotic Intruders

Author: Joan Druett

Publication details: Heinemann, 1983, Auckland

Digital publication kindly authorised by: Joan Druett

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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Exotic Intruders

Adventive plants

page 61

Adventive plants

Garden escapes invade the surrounding countryside in a variety of ways. Horticultural dumping, from the tidying up suburban sections, leads to accidental acclimatisations, so that we see cannas and ginger plants and exotic cacti lining roads and railway lines.

Blackberry and other berrying plants fringe roads and even the edges of the native bush because of the busy activities of thrushes and blackbirds, who feed on the berries and then spread the seeds with their droppings.

Willows were planted deliberately by the nostalgic settlers and then spread as twigs were flushed downstream by the current.

More infrequent, but all-encompassing in its effect on the naturalisation of exotic plants, was the spread of trees and flowers when homesteads were abandoned. The remnants of the once carefully-nurtured gardens and orchards were left to seed and grow, remaining even when the houses had tumbled into rotting firewood.

Old houses disappear, but their garden plantings remain.

Old houses disappear, but their garden plantings remain.

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