A foreigner in the forest

I took a few picture-postcard views today, of quiet seas and distant beaches, but opted to blip this oddity. It's a Gunnera plant, but it's not in the Botanical Gardens nor in someone's grand but boggy garden. This gunnera grows, somewhat grotesquely, in woodland behind Glenfinart Bay, and it's enormous. It's a native to such places as New Zealand and the south Pacific, and presumably found its way here in the same burst of fervour for things exotic that surrounded us in rhododendron bushes. 

It's also known as giant rhubarb, for obvious reasons, but it's a lot more prickly.