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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2017
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Coping with migrants on the move
The plant world’s
annual race begins
By MATT WINTERS
EO Media Group
I
f dandelions were hard to grow, we’d
pay $2.49 for a slender package of seeds
and hold festivals in their honor. There’s
often a fi ne line between what we defi ne as
a weed or esteem as a pretty little fl ower.
This distinction is front of mind this time of
year as the plant world’s annual race begins
for real, everything busting out into bud and
bloom over the next few weeks.
W riter’s
N otebook
It would take a lot of willpower to pull
off with a straight face, but we just might get
away with redefi ning our luxuriant stands of
gorse and S cotch broom as a tourist attrac-
tion. Clear your mind of prejudice and it’s
hard to deny these obnoxious invasive spe-
cies are spectacular. There must few species
anywhere capable of erupting into such solid
walls of blossoms — usually a saturated yel-
low, but in the case of S cotch broom some-
times edging into copper, orange or nearly
white. If you didn’t know better, you’d think
they were the result of a laborious roadside
beautifi cation campaign. From our house
overlooking the larger Sand Island in Baker
Bay, my antiquated Gardner & Co. Glascow
telescope makes the island’s outer edges
look encircled by an enchanted golden wall,
impenetrable by mortal man and woman.
In this region, stands of gorse — cou-
pled with blackberry vines and wild roses —
are our bria r patches. As in the Old South,
where Br’er Rabbit tricked the fox into
throwing him into the bria r patch and thus
provide a means of escape, our local thorn
thickets shelter feral bunnies and much other
wildlife.
Humans don’t like being told where
we can’t go; maybe this helps explain our
enmity to these havens built from fl owers
and wicked stickers.
Blogger Green Deane recounts the story
of an Englishman who woke up in the mid-
dle of a gorse patch after a drunken night on
the town. He was stuck there more than a
day. “I wouldn’t advise anybody to go into
it ( gorse bushes) , you know what I mean?
At fi rst it seems fun but, before you know it,
you’re like stuck,” he told the BBC after his
rescue by a British Royal Air Force helicop-
ter. “Whichever way I turned it seemed to be
the wrong one that day.” One of his rescuers
said, “We’ve no idea how he got there. He
was right in the middle of the gorse. It was
like he had been dropped there by a space-
ship …”
Gorse isn’t all bad. Both it and S cotch
broom have some interesting medicinal
qualities. From a pragmatic standpoint,
gorse might be the more useful plant. Deane
(tinyurl.com/Useful-Gorse) claims it is
everything from a fl ea repellent to a wine
ingredient to cattle fodder, once its spines
are crushed. Gorse blossoms “have a slight
coconut aroma and almond taste,” he said,
an opinion I am unable to share after trying
some earlier this week.
Scotch broom, while lacking thorns,
seems more often to endanger people. Its
seed pods resemble those of peas, which
tempts children and livestock into eat-
ing them. A Canadian government website
advises, “Scotch broom poisoning results
in depressed heart and nervous systems and
a consequent sensation of numbness, espe-
cially in the feet and hands. In particularly
susceptible persons, death can occur from
respiratory failure.”
Both broom and gorse form dense mono-
cultures, crowding out native species. By
being good at converting atmospheric nitro-
gen into a mineral form accessible to plants,
they enhance soil fertility. Ironically, this
tends to be bad for native plants, which
evolved to grow in poor soils.
Natives and invaders
I’m always on the look out for col-
umn-worthy plants and animals, but out of
ignorance often can’t tell what is truly weird.
Fortunately, p eninsula renaissance woman
Kathleen Sayce is never more than an email
away to answer questions.
For several years, I’ve been curious
about a plant whose green shoots begin to
poke through the surface as early as Janu-
ary or February. Sending Sayce a snapshot, I
learned it is the native species “sweet colts-
foot, Petasites frigidus ssp. palmatus, a very
early fl owering daisy. There are patches of
it in the forest throughout our area. Import-
ant early nectar source for many insect spe-
cies.” Investigating further, Wikipedia
claims, “The leaf stalks and fl ower stems
(with fl owers) are edible, and can be used as
Kathleen Sayce
Gorse has sharp long spines and highly resinous wood; it burns easily, provides nectar
for late winter to early spring foraging bees, and habitat for wasps.
and African grain fi elds. One of its folk
names is Rapunzel. For reasons too obscure
to explain, this may be the origin of the
Bothers Grimm tale of the same name. Sayce
found it fl owering for a time near the Cape
Disappointment boat launch. On another
occasion, she found a hardy yucca — a desert
plant — in the dunes along Discovery Trail
near Beard’s Hollow in Cape Disappoint-
ment State Park. She said it “was quickly
identifi ed as having come in on a high storm
tide with woody and plastic debris. Someone
likely tossed it in the Columbia River well
upstream, and it fl oated down and on to the
ocean beach, was tossed up into the dunes
and rooted there. I dug it out, of course.”
Weird plants trying to carve out new hab-
itats here — sometimes with human aid —
aren’t a new thing. Some of the witchy-look-
ing old apple trees around Chinook and
McGowan are said to date from nearly two
centuries ago. On the Oregon side, Sayce
noted “Point Adams is an interesting area
because there was housing for offi cers (with
gardens) when it was fi rst taken over as a
military fort. There are some very interest-
ing trees, shrubs and perennials that have
survived from those original plantings. Rem-
nant orchards. Also bulbs.”
The Russians are here
Matt Winters /EO Media Group
Sweet coltsfoot, a native species, is one of spring’s early bloomers, providing nourish-
ment to many insects. Native Americans sometimes used a tea made from the plant to
combat respiratory ailments.
National Park Service
Brown rats on the West Coast are all de-
scended from migrants that are believed
to have arrived with early Russian fur
traders. Now dominating their habitat,
they fight off all rat newcomers.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
A species from the high Arctic, a ribbon
seal, was photographed last year near
Surfside, Washington.
How we choose to adapt, accommodate,
manage or resist migrations of all kinds will
be the defi ning theme of this century, and
likely of many more to come.
a vegetable dish. A salt-substitute can also be
made by drying and then burning the leaves.
This black, powdery substance will pro-
vide a salty taste.” Northwest plants gurus
Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon observed
coltsfoot tea was used by some Indians as a
treatment for respiratory ailments including
tuberculosis.
Walking years ago along the Altoona
shoreline across the estuary northeast of
Astoria, I encountered a fl owering plant
which — like the drunken Englishman in
the gorse patch — seemed to have been
dropped from a spaceship. It was like noth-
ing I’ve ever seen before or since. But even
this experience is, in turns out, not uncom-
mon. We live on the wild frontier when it
comes to invaders.
“On the Columbia River, we fi nd new
species all the time due to shipping,” Sayce
told me. “This makes identifi cation tough,
because of not knowing where in the world
to look for likely species. ( Local bota-
nist) Cathy Maxwell has probably found
more than 20 new species here over sev-
eral decades. I also found a Eurasian wheat-
grass on the Willapa River about fi ve years
ago, Thinopyrum ponticum, tall wheatgrass,
very salt tolerant, and widely planted in the
Midwest because it can stand up to win-
ter road salt on the verges. We have many,
many incoming species here … And more
are coming in all the time, from ships, tires,
feet, pets, etc.”
It seems it would possible to organize a
scientifi c “scavenger hunt” here to look for
plants badly out of place. Among others,
Sayce has found Valerianella locusta, com-
monly called corn salad, a leafy food plant
that usually grows mixed in with Eurasian
Plants aren’t the only unauthorized immi-
grants and refugees here on the Columbia
River and West Coast. All our local rats are,
most likely, originally from Russia.
One of my favorite science stories
(tinyurl.com/Rat-Colonists) of the past half
year was written by Carl Zimmer of the New
York Times. In it, he describes a novel genet-
ics study of brown rats, Rattus norvegicus,
looking not just at how these intrepid explor-
ers swept across the planet in the past 300
years, but also at how their behavior may
actually protect us today.
Although sometimes called Norway rats,
researchers found the species probably orig-
inated very long ago in what are now Mon-
golia and northern China. Different waves
of rat migrants eventually ventured into the
outside world, these distinct migrations leav-
ing unique genetic traces within the overall
brown rat population. There were, for exam-
ple, apparently three major arrivals of brown
rats in Europe. Other exploring parties col-
onized Siberia and other places, fi rst slowly
and then swiftly dominating other common
rodent species like black rats and house
mice.
“Brown rats in Alaska and along the
Pacifi c Coast of the United States and Can-
ada can trace much of their ancestry to Rus-
sia,” researchers found, according to Zim-
mer. “Their ancestors may have stowed
away aboard ships that traveled to fur-trap-
ping communities in the New World in the
1700s and early 1800s. … The brown rats
of New York and other e astern American cit-
ies trace their ancestry to those in Western
Europe. So do brown rats in South America,
Africa, New Zealand, and isolated islands
scattered across the Atlantic and Pacifi c.”
The really interesting thing is brown rats,
once established, are about as anti-immi-
grant as it gets. Despite all the international
and interstate shipping now, rat populations
show “very little evidence” of newcomers
adding to the existing rat gene pool in cit-
ies worldwide.
“The researchers now theorize that the
fi rst brown rats to show up in a city rapidly
fi ll it up,” Zimmer reported. “Later, when
bedraggled latecomers tumble out of ships in
the city’s ports, the stronger residents rebuff
them.”
This may mean the olden days may never
be repeated when rats are thought to have
been culprits responsible for delivering ter-
rifying new diseases like the black plague
to seaside cities. We have angry armies of
xenophobic rats defending their homes and
ours.
Accommodate or resist
The world still can seem very large when
you’re on an airliner for 12 hours to Europe
or 22 to Singapore. In other ways, it’s never
been smaller, either when it some to novel
species disembarking at the Columbia River
estuary, or people setting out from impov-
erished and war-torn countries in hopes of
sanctuary.
Earth’s changing climate is dislodg-
ing many organisms from old homes. Liv-
ing here, it seems every year brings news of
strange sightings of birds, fi sh, marine mam-
mals and terrestrial plants popping up far
beyond their accustomed ranges.
Exciting as it is to spot things like Arc-
tic ribbon seals, it also is worrisome. Like
a comet passing through the asteroid belt
and discombobulating giant space rocks that
might plummet to earth, disruption of animal
and human habitats will have impacts.
How we choose to adapt, accommodate,
manage or resist migrations of all kinds will
be the defi ning theme of this century, and
likely of many more to come.
Matt Winters is editor and publisher of
the Chinook Observer and Coast River Busi-
ness Journal.