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War Declared on Alien Plant Life Executive Targets 13 Non-Native Species Which Could Damage Natural Heritage

Posted on: Saturday, 2 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

WAR was declared yesterday on alien invaders seen as a serious threat to the Scottish countryside.

Government environmentalists have targeted 13 non-native species of terrestrial and aquatic plants they believe could damage our natural heritage.

They include the Few-Flowered Leek, a native of southeast Asia known to have f lourished around the River Kelvin in Glasgow, and the Australian Swamp Stonecrop, introduced to Britain in the early 1900s.

Parrot's Feather and Floating Pennywort, which choke waterways, are also included among those now added to other offenders, such as Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed, already thriving in rural areas.

According to the Scottish Executive, alien plants have in the past "escaped over the garden wall" or been planted in the wild by well meaning but misguided individuals.

Yesterday a new order under the Wildlife and Countryside legislation came into force, making it an offence to grow the 13 new plants, or hybrids of them. People who break the ban could face up to two years in jail or an unlimited fine.

Rhona Brankin, deputy minister for the environment, announced the move to increase protection from alien plants which, out of the garden and pond environment, compete with native species, suffocate aquatic life and threaten the natural heritage.

She said: "Invasive nonnative species are a threat to global biodiversity and Scotland's natural environment.

"With this order we are looking to the future, to stop the same mistakes being made and to halt the spread of species which can be seriously damaging to the environment."

Ms Brankin said making it a criminal offence to spread these "problem plants"was one of a number of measures the executive was taking to prevent them colonising the countryside.

Non-native aquatic plant species can threaten amenity and recreation interests such as fishing. Other problems result from the fact that chemical control is extremely difficult in a water environment, and mechanical control can just make the problem worse by distributing small pieces which can then regenerate.

The Australian Swamp Stonecrop is also known as New Zealand Pygmyweed and is often mislabelled in shops as either Tillaea recurva or Tillaea helmsii.

The plant can regenerate from very small fragments of plant material, 5mm in length.

It causes problems in waterbodies where they grow rapidly and form dense mats. They outgrow and threaten native aquatic species and they also create a habitat that is oxygendepleted and inadequate for fish and invertebrates.

Water Hyacinth, another villain, is a popular pond plant, with its attractive purple f lowers. It is a native of South America but is now an invasive plant in more than 50 countries worldwide. Cromarty in the north of Scotland has the largest area of seagrass in Britain.

It grows into f loating mats of interlocked plants and these can rapidly change the ecology of the water body by absorbing nutrients and depleting the oxygen.

At present, the plant is frost sensitive and does not survive the winter in Britain. However, this may alter with climate change and species adaptation.

Parrot's Feather, a native of the River Amazon, gets its name from the feather-like appearance of its grey-green leaves.

Introduced around 1890, it has spread quickly by way of plant fragments through waterways and drainage systems and intentional plantings.

Floating Pennywort was brought to Britain in the 1980s as a plant for tropical aquaria and garden ponds. It, too, forms dense interwoven mats of vegetation which quickly cover the surface of the water killing many of the species living in it.

THE UNLUCKY 13

COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME

Fanwort Cabomba caroliniana

Hyacinth, Water Eichhornia crassipes

Lettuce, Water Pistia stratiotes

Salvinia, Giant Salvinia molesta

Fern, Water Azolla filiculoides

Parrot's Feather Myriophyllum aquaticum

Pennywort, Floating Hydrocotyle ranunculoides

Stonecrop, Australian swamp Crassula helmsii

Waterweed, Curly Lagarosiphon major

False-acacia Robinia pseudoacacia

Fig, Hottentot Carpobrotus edulis

Leek, Few-flowered Allium paradoxum

Shallon Gaultheria shallon

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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