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Show U. S. Invaded by Foreign Weeds 1,000 Species Have Come to America During Past Three Centuries. WASHINGTON. - More than a thousand European "weeds" have invaded America In the past three centuries. In their native lands they may have been lovely flowers, such as the St.-James's-wort, one of the handsome plants of British hillsides. About 70 years ago this species appeared ap-peared in Nova Scotia, and by 19O0 it had become one of the worst pests of the countryside. Farmers reehristened it "stinking Willie," and it now has reached as far south as Massachusetts. This is only one striking example, says Dr. M. L. Fernald of Harvard university in the latest annual report re-port of the Smithsonian institution. The invaders include the common dandelion, burdock, white daisy, witchgrass, Canad thistle, plantain, pigweed and dock. They are crowding crowd-ing out some of the rarest and most delicate North American flowers. I'nrleaned Seeds. "Their army is reinforced," says Dr. Fernald, "by every arrival of uncleaned European seeds, In the stockings, trouser bottoms, skirt-hems skirt-hems and blankets of immigrants and in the letter and old straw used in packing from abroad. Arrived in a new country, they know no restraints, re-straints, and after a period of adjustment ad-justment become the bulk of our plant population, wherever natural conditions have been destroyed." A notable case is that of the "devil's paintbrush," a lovely plant with orange and scarlet blossoms, which was highly prized In New England gardens a half century ago. In the early nineties it had become acclimated and began to appear in the fields. It has now, as Dr. Fernald Fer-nald points out, ruined thousands of acres of field and clearing from the tip of the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec to Michigan and southward to Pennsylvania. Arc Serious Menace. j "These invaders," says Dr. Fernald, Fer-nald, "are our thoroughly successful success-ful wild plants and their success is to be compared with that of European Euro-pean man, the European rat and mouse, the European starling, the English sparrow, the European gypsy and brown tail moths, and the European housefly." These weeds arc much more of a menace, he believes, than such common but purely native species as poison Ivy, wild strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, fire weed, pennyroyal and others. "These," he says, "are our native Invaders, but they are relatively harmless. They have been longer on the ground and, although showing show-ing some of the unreprcssed traits of aggressive youth, are surely less obnoxious in their behavior than many of the recently arrived European Euro-pean invaders." |
