17th-century botanists filled their gardens with plants from around the world | Hacker News Reader

17th-century botanists filled their gardens with plants from around the world

laphamsquarterly.org

56 pointsbenbreen16 comments

Sometimes this led to noxious weeds being spread, such as the giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), which was brought to Europe and North America from the Caucasus starting in the early 1800's as an ornamental plant. Turns out it has phototoxic sap, causing blisters and scars if you touch it and then expose that skin to the sun.

This was immortalized by the prog-rock band Genesis in their song "The Return of the Giant Hogweed": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTuJQL8GBqY

It's a tragic shame that people didn't have the concept of invasive species back then.

Well that's one of those things where you wouldn't have a sense that it was a problem until you observed it being a problem.

We are not doing much better, currently. The problem has increased exponentially.

I had no idea that plant was toxic or invasive. I used to pick the flowers sometimes. It is all over the place in Florida.

It's phototoxic. If you touch it, getting the sap on you, and then expose that skin to sunlight, it causes blisters and scarring. That's caused by a chemical in the plant called furanocoumarin. (If you touch it, wash that area with soap and cold water, and avoid exposing it to sunlight for at least 48 hours.)

That's even mentioned in the lyrics to the Genesis song: "Strike by night! / They are defenceless / They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom"

Likewise with some species of blackberries, but at least they have the benefit of providing a tasty snack before I go after them with tools and a fury.

Unfortunately, they compete with native berries like salmon berries on the west coast and other shrubs in the same habitat. Unlike salmon berries and native shrubs though, despite being a good food source, they are poor habitat for birds and small mammals that would otherwise occupy that canopy level and habitat.

The native blackberries are small trailing vines that grow below salmonberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries, spirea, dogwoods, elder berries, mountain ash, salal, cottonwoods, alders and more. They grow amongst foamlflowers and other small herbaceous plants. All those plants provide ideal habitat and forage for a huge variety of animal species.

Himalayan and evergreen blackberries are large woody shrubs that overtake everything else and grow into a thick tangled impenetrable mass of thorns not ideal for many native animal species.

An area that should have between 6 to a dozen species of plants will instead have 1 because of the way invasive blackberries grow.

It really is surprising how accurate 'thick tangled impenetrable mass of thorns' is, without being an exaggeration at all. As a teenager I helped my dad, over the course of an entire summer, reclaim over 3 acres from a monoculture expanse of blackberries. They were just a 6-8ft tall sea of thorns and brambles.

> Turns out it has phototoxic sap, causing blisters and scars if you touch it and then expose that skin to the sun.

Fun fact: The name for this is corona syndrome, named for people getting severe burns after cutting limes on the beach. Almost gave it to myself yesterday after pruning a potted fig tree without wearing gloves, but fortunately got the sap off in less than a minute so was fine.

What's it got to do with (specifically) limes or the beach? 'Corona' ~ 'crown'; the 'solar corona' is 'the luminous plasma atmosphere surrounding the sun'.

(Perhaps I'm misunderstanding/leaping but it seems like you're implying it's named for people cutting limes to serve with that brand of beer?)

I would assume somewhat like 'sun-kissed' it's simply named for being 'crowned' (coronaed) by the sun.

Also sometimes known as 'margarita burn' or 'Mexican beer dermatitis'. So in this case that name definitely refers to the beer brand.

Hm ok, seems quite a coincidence, but fair enough!

Wiktionary lists 'lime disease', which I think is excellent.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lime_disease

Monty Don's around the world in 80 gardens, is a great series that talks about this period, by taking you to some of the worlds most impressive gardens, from a time when gardens were meant to convey power and status and were play toys of the rich and full of one-upmanship.

Here's an episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iboabQkTXRk

One of the least-likely page turners I’ve ever read is Sunflowers: The Secret History.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4667362

Why not nutmeg and cloves? Was it an artificially induced monopoly, or were they difficult to grow outside Maluku?

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