Have You Seen This Plant?

You may have,  in a shady garden (perhaps yours) or, if you live in  NW America, in damp forests on the Pacific coast to which it is native.

Tolmiea menziesii, Piggyback Plant, is not so much flagged up as an invasive alien as are those ostentatious 'monsters' like Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, American Skunk Cabbage and Brazilian Giant Rhubarb (Gunnera)  that we love to hate and root out or spray wherever they threaten to overwhelm our native flora.

Rather, it is an inconspicuous and maybe harmless guest that has crept beyond garden boundaries and established itself  where conditions are right for it. Such as here in a mild, damp valley on the west Wales coast. It has been quietly establishing itself in Scotland and SW England too in similar environments. Here, all along the little river Gwaun, it has spread across areas of the valley floor as far as the eye can see - but there are few human eyes to see it, much less to recognise it because it could easily be mistaken for a native plant. The outspread leaves are a gentle green and the delicate flowers, intricate whiskery structures that remind me of fishing flies, are  born aloft on  slender stems. En masse they cover  the ground allowing little opportunity for competitors to break through.

Does this stealthy invasion of an unremarkable plant really matter?  Certainly as a signpost towards the future. There is much debate about invasive species which in many parts of the world they have ceratinly wrought serious damage on indigenous wildlife. Some of the language used comes close to racial paranoia, whereas other biologists see it as  an inevitable consequence of global heating and human mobility.

There's no telling how problematic Piggyback Plant will be but clearly it's now dominating the flora in this particular area.  Native wildlife - invertebrates, fungi and so on - is not adapted to co-exist with the new arrival which means it may not become part of the food chain nor play a role in the interchange of mysterious connections that play a significant  role in the wider plant environment. The only way in which this and other new arrivals on the wildlife scene can be controlled is to roll back climate change. Our wetter warmer weather conditions make it easy for species native to milder climates to establish themselves in new environments as global temperatures rise. (Hence  reports of grass growing in Antarctica. )

Piggyback plant is related to another species from NW America called Tolmeia menziesii (fringecups) that I reported on a few years ago here. (I'm beginning see that escaping into the wild too.)

Extra is a wider view of piggyback plant colonising the river valley.

Have YOU seen it?!