Invasive and Injurious Species
The criteria for invasive species has been controversial, as widely divergent perceptions exist among researchers as well as concerns with the subjectivity of the term “invasive”. Several alternate usages of the term have been proposed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species
I Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris)
Jacobaea vulgaris, …… is a very common wild flower in the family Asteraceae that is native to northern Eurasia, usually in dry, open places, and has also been widely distributed as a weed elsewhere. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobaea_vulgaris
Injurious weed;
fruitful wildflower;
Slow poisoner of cattle, horses;
life-support for ten endangered species.
Scorned as stinking willie (and resembling pissenlit);
proudly vibrant yellow, long-flowering and
exclaiming sunlight in the dunes.
mid-green pinnate leaves,
dense flower-heads,
bright radial florets, darkbrown seeds,
clustered, dried, flying:
All clues to help to hunt them down…..
The dominant human discourse: weed and poisoner;
the dominant insect discourse: home and food-source.
II ‘Rosehips’ (Rosa Rugosa)
The species Rosa rugosa was introduced to Britain from Japan in 1776 ………… It is native to Northern China, Japan and Korea, where it is a coastal plant often growing on sand dunes – naturalised plants in the UK may be found in exactly this habitat, making it a perfect choice for coastal gardens or sandy soils. https://www.pgg.org.uk/rugosa-roses/
the hip,
loved for
its rich red: crimson?
damson? swelling in sunlight and after
rain, prominent against the vine-green leaves, beside
the loud-pink blooms; Rosa Rugosa: source of nectar,
fibrous cells and flesh as foods for mammals, arthropods
and birds; clusters tight, shoots roots beneath
the earth to invade others’ spaces;
fits the profile well:
‘English
Rose’.
III Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera)
Introduced to the UK in 1839, Himalayan balsam is now a naturalised plant, found especially on riverbanks and in waste places where it has become a problem weed. Himalayan balsam tolerates low light levels and also shades out other vegetation, so gradually impoverishing habitats by killing off other plants. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=480
‘Balsam bashing’ is an uncomfortable term; to reach
these palely delicate pink headed plants is
to tread heavily on horizontally thrusting bramble
stems and shoots; to draw the balsam from
the soil is a tuned balance of motion
and direction, a fine-motor pinch and lift,
not a clenched grab and pull.
At first it is the pink flower heads that reveal
its conquering spread, low new growth
lost among the dog rose, blackberry and bindweed;
the trick is to guess the direction of the stem,
hidden within the undergrowth
of thicker trunks and grasses. Later, focusing
more pointedly, you see the rhubarb-coloured
woolstrand width glowing quietly among
the greens.
A careful motion draws the stem and roots
cleanly from the soil; sap splashes
as the length is halved and quartered;
the black sack fills.
The taller plants have thicker, firmer,
hollow and more brittle stems, but still
release their anchoring smoothly, readily.
That the invader yields, has no resistance,
yet ‘displaces native species’, reaffirms
discomfort, in and out of language, and shoots
questions of the ‘science’ at the root.
‘Few species can live in the shifting world of sand dunes.’
(National Geographic)
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/dune/#:~:text=A%20dune%20is%20a%20mound%20of%20sand%20formed%20by%20the,windward%20side%20and%20a%20slipface.
Few species can live in the shifting world of sand dunes,
but, despite the fluidity of their separate constituent grains,
their height, their elevation, their slip- and windward faces,
are built upon the loom of roots of marram grass;
on paths, which wind, rise and fall along such dunes,
the sea in-rushing below, the marram makes the landscape
alternately straw and green, the long leaves, sharp-edged,
prick legs and hands in passing, the whole plant
fighting forces which would weaken their hold on their earth;
Straw-coloured, emerald, sharp-edged, the features in passing;
but a microscopic lens shows yellows, blues, and highlights
softer sounds: the leaf is ‘rolled’, except in rain,
has ‘stubbly hairs’, a ‘waxy cuticle’ and is adapted
to the dryness of wind, conserving carefully the water
which feeds the plant and strengthens it for seeding.
Geological Field Trips
(with thanks to Derek Teasdale)
- Organic material, A,B,C Horizons
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/auger
1 A tool resembling a large corkscrew, for boring holes in wood.
1.1 A large tool similar to an auger, used for boring holes in the ground.
2 A marine mollusc of warm seas with a slender tapering spiral shell.
Terebra and other genera, family Terebridae, class Gastropoda
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/augur
augur well/badly/ill
1 (of an event or circumstance) portend a good or bad outcome.
1.1 with object Portend or bode (a specified outcome)
1.2 archaic with object Foresee or predict.
- Pike Law
Wester Beck still washing beside
the boulder clay cliff
uncovered by a glacial melt,
marks a western boundary;
on its eastern bank
a fan of spoil deposits, today,
after much rain,
watered by the heard but unseen
stream which flows beneath the
bryophytes, vivid green; and in
a newly broken sunlight,
the out-sorted discarded fluorite,
glows quietly purple.
Trace the underground stream,
easterly, into a hush,
the flora floating on pools,
ferns rooted by pools
bryophytes and cladonia uncialis
as ground-cover between pools, all
defying a toxicity, washed
from the galena, hammered
then chiselled, split from
the limestone in an urgent,
noise and smoke-filled age.
The fellsides of rock and earth
or simply heaped spoil rise
between valleys scooped over
decades by floods released
from piled dams which gathered
rainfall, beck-flow, standing water
and awaited human carvers of hush
Body of Writing 