Plant Exchange:

What's Supposed to be here and what's not?

As I traveled through Australia and New Zealand this summer, I began to notice familiar plants and trees. If New Zealand was so exotic, why were so many of their plants familiar? The island is unique in that it was not inhabited until the 1100s by Maori who traveled in canoes to settle the islands. The Maori were the first humans to come to this unique land--a land that evolved from volcanic action and was populated over millions of years by air born and sea born plants. Because of their ability to fly, birds were the possible first animal inhabitants. Flightless birds evolved over millions of years on the island because they had no need to fly. They had no natural predators. Until the Maori arrived.

The Maori left the Polynesian Islands in search for new land. We do not know why they left, but whatever the reason, they were planning to stay somewhere because they brought taro with them--a food they still enjoy.

 

 

 

 

Maori rock shelter

What else came in their canoes? Dogs and rats. The rats were probably accidental travelers, but they were soon to play havoc with the bird egg population. Rats could not damage the giant moa, a now extinct flightless bird with different species ranging from about turkey size to about 13 feet tall, but man could. Imagine hunting for game and seeing a giant moa. It would feed a lot of people. Although it could not fly, it could run and the Maoris had to hunt in groups and destroy the thick plants in which the moa hid. They cleared trees and scrub through canyons, perched in rock shelters above the valley, waiting for the moa to move into the area. The picture shows such a rock shelter and its view of the valley. When in position, the Maori men would cooperatively chase the moa into dead end crevasses and kill them easily. They could share the meat with the village and even dry some to store for later.

By the time the English arrived and founded "New Zealand" the moa was extinct, but they brought much more which was detrimental to the landscape flora and fauna. They brought sheep, cats, ferrets, rabbits, stoats--all except sheep enjoy meals of eggs. For the sheep the English brought grass and other plants that were later to become pests.

The Maori's Kauri.

After living in the US and visiting Australia, I kept thinking, "Everywhere the English went they took their country with them." Although humans have a desire for the most exotic, we also crave the familiar. Coupled with the need to survive, humans have become the largest exporter of plants around the world. We can hardly visit a place that does not have familiar plants, yet some, like the giant kauri tree is endangered because of the value of its wood as construction material. Other wood species have become scarce over whole countries like Haiti, because it has been used for cooking fires.

Even herbs become extinct from overuse. The ancient Egyptians knew of an herb effective as a birth control, but it was used to extinction (The History Channel). Wild Native American ginseng is highly valued in Asia. Because of its harvest and marketing overseas, it has become rare in the US (Friend 1999).

 

 

This Flowering ginger was brought to New Zealand and is now considered a pest. It is sold in nurseries in Florida for its sweet smell and delicate flower. Will it become another pepper tree problem?]

So what makes some humans prone to manipulate the landscape to such lengths? After thinking about this I came up with a group of hypotheses as to why. Can you offer alternative ideas or argue against these ideas?

The first hypothesis would be the one touched on already.

 

Sustenance Hypothesis

People may transport plants to new lands because they are a favored or plentiful source of food--a food source whose properties, processing, and preparation are well known--to feed them in their new world. A prime example is the Polynesian people traveling with taro, a quick growing food source, to sustain them in the new land. Europeans brought many cultivars to the Americas the best known being wheat and sugar. In exchange, they took the Native Americans' domesticated corn and potatoes to the world (Crosby 1972).

Certainly the exchange of plants has long been used for commercial value and the money derived from marketing the product, tobacco and sugar are notable examples. An anthropologist, Sidney Mintz, has written a book that covers the distribution of sugar world wide using systems theory. Sugar was initially expensive and available only to the elites. As crops multiplied and plantation owners began recognizing profits from sugar it was marketed to everyone. Now we argue against sugar farming in environmentally sensitive lands. Its true cost in terms of human labor and nutrient rich runoff are yet to be accurately assessed.

 

Familiarity/Aesthetic Hypothesis

Some people transport their old beliefs and ideas with them to new homes to make new surroundings more familiar. We are comfortable with what we know.

If some people believe that aesthetics are an important part of "being civilized" they will want to carry those symbols along to remind them of their refinement and bring the joy of beauty into their crude and perilous new lands. If they grew roses in England, why would they not want to enjoy them in the New World? We could test this hypothesis by looking at the history of rose societies or tracing the route of tulips and bulbs brought from the Netherlands.

In looking for the history of the rose I found the following:

The World Federation of Rose Societies is a federation of the national rose societies of 34 countries around the world, representing more than 100,000 rose lovers. [Their] goal is to expand contact among them and increase the flow of knowledge about the rose.

The World Federation of Rose Societies (WFRS) was founded in 1968 in London, England by representatives from the rose societies of Australia, Belgium, Israel, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, Great Britain and the United States of America. Its stated purpose was to hold international rose conferences and act as a clearinghouse for rose research.

This is the first hint that I may be on the right trail. Although founded in 1968, I feel the "rose exchange" must be continuing through out the world. Have you ever tried to grow roses? They are difficult to grow in Florida. They require constant watering, fertilizing, pesticide and fungicide use.

The next website I found claimed that roses first appeared 35 million years ago. But it had no citation and offered no proof of the claim. That seems a little far fetched to me because it was a commercial site (.com). I investigated further.

 

I was about to give up on my search for the history or roses when I found this item: "Rosa rugosa is a wide-ranging species which occurs naturally in Siberia, Northern China, and Japan. . . .Rosa rugosa reached Europe in 1796." Compton's Encyclopedia attributes Asia as the source of most all of the earliest roses. Did Marco Polo bring them back from China with the pasta?

 

The Status Hypothesis

Collecting certain plants and transporting them to a new place may be a status enhancer that the person has the resources to bring back the exotic from distant places. In a capitalist society, the rarer the item, the more value it has--another version of the principle of supply and demand.

Tulips originally came from Asia to Turkey and the Balkans. The Turks were responsible for hybridizing the native tulip and introducing them to Europe. "By 1600 the [Netherlands] was a center of tulip production. Now millions of bulbs are cultivated each year for export."

Tulips are reported to cause the collapse of the Netherlands economy as well. This source is suspicious because of its commercial nature and being part of a game, but it states

 

Tulips were a status symbol among the Dutch aristocracy of the 17th century. When their love of the tulip turned to obsession, prices spiraled out of control. Growers and dealers actively traded tulip options. Speculators also jumped into the market.

The market finally crashed in 1636, bringing the Dutch economy to its knees. Despite the blame heaped upon financial tools used in the tulip craze, puts and calls were back in use within a few years on the Amsterdam market.

 

To verify this finding I went to the Enclopaedia Britticanica On-Line. Indeed, there was an economic collapse following the meteoric rise of tulip prices, called Tulip Mania.

Another example for the status hypothesis is the cultivation of orchids. The hysteria for the rarest orchids has led to the denuding of southwest Florida's cypress and oak forest of their native orchid species. In The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean, describes some of the passion involved in orchid collection. Some will go so far as to risk jail to procure valuable orchids for the black market. Some even reason that in collecting them they will propagate many more to provide the public. For many reasons, cultivators of wild species cannot reproduce the complex environment in which the orchid evolved in nature and their project fails, endangering the species still further.

She mentions that Victorian England was so enamoured with orchids that they "were seen as a badge of wealth and refinement and worldliness; they implied mastery of the wilderness and of alien places; their preciousness made them the beautiful franchise of the upper class" (1998:73-74). This brings me to my last and final hypothesis.

 

Mastery and Control of the Environment Hypothesis

Human experimentation has led to a proliferation of species of many ornamental and especially agricultural plants. We are inquisitive people. By hybridizing, growers hope to create the most unique specimen to win acclaim and fortune. Black flowers have been especially desired along with many unexpected color species. Easy pollination and germination techniques make it possible for almost anyone to manipulate a plant to found a new species to give your own name. It is not just the Gregor Mendels of the world that create new combinations, but hobbiest also. These new hybrids are even more sensitive to the vagaries of the non-native's climatic changes. In our area, but not so much as in other Florida areas, frost hardy species are necessary. Certain species highly desired in landscaping, such as azalea, camellia, and dogwood, cannot exist below a certain latitude in Florida for they must have so many days of cold to thrive. But people keep planting foreign species and mostly ignore the weather hardy native plants found so readily in any area.

Our final area of control is our need to keep plants in their place, by weeding, mulching, and edging. We force scrubs into unnatural shapes of hedges or even elephant topiaries at Disney World to please and delight the eye. Is all this necessary? And what about the fertilizer and chemical runoff and thirsty watering regimes that further degrade and deplete our natural resources?

For your assignment you may test one of my hypothesis regarding the human obsession with exotic landscapes and manicured lawns following other readings and thoughts. Try to focus on a subject, present its history, and discuss its consequences and issues.

Bibliography

Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia. 1995 Edition.

Crosby, Alfred W. Jr. 1972. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Greenwood Press, Westport, CN.

Enclopaedia Britticanica On-Line 1994-1999. "Tulip Mania" http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=75652&sctn=1#s_top

Friend, Tim. 1999. "Overharvesting forces ban on ginseng exports." Ft. Myers News Press, August 23, 1999:D1.

The History Channel: The History of Sex. Broadcast August 20, 1999.

The History of Roses http://www.ctel.com.au/clients/visible/rosefest/history2.htm

Newman, Keith. August 21,1999. Wordworkz Webzine. Moa. http://www.wordworx.co.nz/moa.html

Olean, Susan. 1998. The Orchid Thief. New York: Random House.

Schulman, S. Andrew. 1995, 1996. Yesterday's Rose: A Tribute to Old and Old Fashioned Garden Roses

http://www.country-lane.com/yr/rugosa.htm

Sidney W. Mintz. 1995. Sweetness and Power : The Place of Sugar in Modern History Viking Press.

World Federation of Rose Societies http://www.worldrose.org/aboutwfrs/default.htm