April 25, 2001

A tour of six continents

You don't have to leave Pacifica to take a botanical tour of the world, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because for every plant that grows well here that originated elsewhere and is universally admired and appreciated, there are five or 10 more that are, at best, mixed blessings, and at worst are weeds.

Most of the trees in Pacifica are a fast-growing, weedy species of Eucalyptus, originally from Australia. Many people who went from the British Isles to Australia eventually came to California. When they did so, some brought the seeds of native Australian trees. Unfortunately, instead of trees that were good for lumbering, they brought fast growers mostly good for windbreaks and forest fires.

The perennial native grasses in this area have been mostly replaced by European annuals. Most of those grasses came in with the Spanish cattle, which were already in place when the first immigrants from the United States arrived. That's why California hills are brown, or poetically, golden. The brooms, weedy European shrubs, are at least somewhat decorative. Pampas Grass was imported from South America, presumably for decoration. I have been able to overlook its beauty for years. It is a real pain to eradicate.

When I bought postage stamps recently, I found one honoring California, featuring a coastal cliff. Unfortunately, instead of some California native plant, the green portion of the stamp showed Ice Plant, an import from South Africa whose main positive attribute is that it's hard as the dickens to kill. The state itself is responsible for much of its spread. Bureaucrats love the stuff because all you have to do to grow ice plant is chop up some of it, let it "cure" for 96 hours, and scatter the pieces where you want it to proliferate. It grows more rapidly and hangs on more tenaciously than the most persistent bureaucrat. J. Edgar Hoover is gone. Ice plant remains.

Monterey Pine and Monterey Cypress, two species which are ubiquitous in our city, are native to the Monterey Peninsula 100 miles south of us. While not far from home, they too aren't native here. Monterey Pine is grown for lumber in New Zealand, so the U.S. is not the only place which imports fast growing potential problems.

Of course, not all imports can be blamed on humans. The creosote bush so widespread in the deserts of the western U.S. evidently was imported when seeds stuck to migrating birds up from South America. It has been in North America about 14,000 years, according to a fascinating article in Smithsonian magazine.

It would be an interesting study, perhaps by some botanical student looking for an idea for a doctoral thesis, to learn just which native plants no longer grow in Pacifica. We know there are various lupines which serve as hosts for various butterflies. Undoubtedly some plants that were always rare have gone the rest of the way. However, the plants I'd like to know more about are the ones once so common they were taken for granted by the Native Americans. Which ones were they? Are they gone forever? We may never know the answers. But it's sure an interesting question, isn't it?

Paul Azevedo's e mail address is thereactor2@earthlink.net