Native plants are enjoying a new celebrity with
Western gardeners, landscapers and conservationists. But just what
makes a plant a native? Art Kruckeberg, a botanist at the
University of Washington and a founder of the Washington Native
Plant Society, says the short answer is this: Natives are plants
that were here before European contact. The first alien plants came
from continental Europe, Kruckeberg says, as settlers accidentally
brought along seeds or bits of plants in shipments of some other
material. Others probably arrived in the waste products of
livestock or in the ballast water of a ship. Non-native species
have since been purposefully imported, with good intentions, for
landscaping, erosion control, or eradication of some other pest.
Some imports, like foxglove and crested wheat grass, have become so
well-established (-naturalized’) that they seem like natives,
Kruckeberg said. But imports often spread unchecked, with
devastating effects on local plant life.
To learn
which plants are native to your area, contact your state’s native
plant society – every Western state has one – or call a local
cooperative extension office. Other sources include local nurseries
that feature native plants and a state or county noxious-weed
control board.
The Washington Native Plant
Society publishes a quarterly newsletter, Douglasia, available with
membership in the organization: WNPS, P.O. Box 28690, Seattle, WA
98118-8690.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Go native.
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