Alien Species.vp - IUCN

Richard N. Mack
overt expressions of these longings for home; they sprang up from Murree in what is now
Northeast Pakistan to Sillong (present day Bangladesh) to Kodaikanal in the South (Kennedy
1996). The enclaves were established initially out of fear and loathing: a fear that malaria was
more prevalent in summer on the Indian Plains and a loathing of summer temperatures at low
elevations. In sharp contrast, the stations’ climates were reminiscent of Britain. At Mussorie,
one of the largest hill stations, the climate was described by one English visitor in curiously
complimentary terms, “How delicious is this coldness in the Hills! – it is just as wet, windy, and
wretched as in England” (Kennedy, 1996).
With a climate that suited them, the expatriates set about altering the locales even more to
their liking. They introduced scores of plants native to northern Europe and the British Isles.
Both private and government gardens were assembled with species that would be found in a
proper English garden. One resident, Lady Lawrence, wrote in 1839 that at Simla, “Violets,
buttercups, wild strawberries and raspberries, and many other old friends abound” (Kennedy,
1996). More ominously, a mid-19 th century pamphlet advertising the attractions of Darjeeling
in Assam reported that, “Many common English wild flowers bring back to memory the hills
and dales and shady nooks and lanes of the fatherland” (Kennedy, 1996). Few, if any,
precautions would have been taken to prevent these non-indigenous species from escaping the
gardens; more likely, their naturalization would have been deemed further success in inserting
the familiar into this foreign landscape.
By end of the 19th century, the Simla flora included garden escapes and ruderals also found
in Britain; among them are species that had been deliberately cultivated (e.g. Cichorium
intybus, Fragaria vesca, Lamium amplexicaule, Papaver dubium, Thymus serpyllum) as well
as others that probably arrived as seed contaminants (Euphorbia pilosa, Sonchus asper,
Sonchus oleraceus) (Collett, 1921). At Ootacamund in the Nilgiris Hills in southern India, the
commonly invasive European shrubs Cytisus scoparius and Ulex europeaus (Westbrooks,
1998) became naturalized along with other garden escapes, such as Phytolacca dioica. Other
European weeds likely arrived in Ootacamund as seed contaminants: Plantago lanceolata, Poa
annua, Rumex acetosella and Sonchus arvensis (Fyson, 1932). These weeds benefit initially
from the cultivation applied to them deliberately or unintentionally in gardens (Mack, 2000).
Non-indigenous woody species (Populus spp., Salix alba, Salix babylonica and especially
Robinia pseudo-acacia) were planted to stabilize landslips along ravines in the Simla townsite
(Collett, 1921). Thus, even the ravines took on the appearance of European riparian and urban
seral forests in which the North American native R. pseudo-acacia is a common component
(Kowarik, 1995; Muller and Okuda, 1998).
The hill stations of India are only extreme but by no means unique examples of colonists’
need for familiar plants in a foreign land. Expressions of this need have repeatedly sprung up
worldwide among immigrants. In the United States alone its expression is apparent in the
floristic composition in traditional gardens raised by not only English but also Dutch, Italian,
and Japanese immigrants (Brown, 1999). The need for the familiar, including familiar plants, is
a widely held aspect of human behaviour with important unexpected consequences for plant
naturalization.
Allure of the new
A paradoxical aspect of human behaviour is that once the sources of our essential needs are
secure and we have erected a familiar, i.e., comforting, environment, we next seek to embellish
this environment with diversity, including diversity in plants. Although probably not a basic
motive, this desire for varied stimulation and thus the avoidance of habituation seems
nonetheless strong (McSweeney and Swindell, 1999). Search for such diversity is expressed in
many ways, including the universal tendency to collect objects, for their diversity alone,
whether cars, coins, dolls, guns, baseball cards, stamps, books, or art (in all its forms).
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