seTTing T he sCene: The naTure of naTure^11but of a whole collection of related organisms. A high proportion of the
spiders, beetles and other invertebrates regularly found in our homes are
thus alien introductions, from the continent or the Near East.^39 Many of our
most cherished wild flowers are likewise early interlopers, including poppy
and corn-cockle. And further introductions, of both flora and fauna, were
soon to follow.
Natural scientists make a broad distinction between ‘indigenous’ species,
present in this country since early post-glacial times; ‘naturalized’ ones, which
have been introduced from abroad but which can reproduce and maintain
themselves readily here; and ‘exotics’ which cannot so do, and which are
mainly restricted to parks, gardens and other controlled locations where
they are deliberately nurtured.^40 Some of the arrivals from abroad have been
introduced intentionally, and others ‘hitchhiked’ with imported organisms or
commodities. Naturalized aliens are an increasing problem throughout this
globalized world, for they can cause serious disruption to the ecosystems
of their adopted homes. They can act in an ‘invasive’ manner, altering the
character of the environment, displacing indigenous wildlife through
competition and predation, spreading pathogens or changing the genetic
makeup of natives through hybridization.^41 Yet in practice it is often hard
to define or identify what is, and what is not, an introduced species.^42 The
development of our indigenous flora and fauna was truncated by the flooding
of the English Channel in the later seventh millennium BC, and some species
which were unquestionably introduced in historic times had been present in
previous interglacials and perhaps nearly arrived back under their own steam.
This causes problems. A number of wild flowers, thought to be introductions
because they fail to be mentioned in early plant lists or herbals, are present
in the neighbouring parts of continental Europe and might simply have
escaped the notice of early botanists and herbalists, perhaps because their
distribution was once more localized. The snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) for
example may be native in England, as it certainly is just across the Channel in
Brittany. But it is only recorded in the wild from the eighteenth century. Some
believe it was introduced as a garden plant as late as the sixteenth century,^43
although Mabey has pointed to the close association of prominent colonies
with medieval ecclesiastical sites, and to the plant’s role in the celebration of
Candlemas in the catholic church.^44 It might be an early introduction, or it
might be an indigenous plant, but only in limited areas of south-west England,
spreading more widely in recent centuries. The evidence can be interpreted in
a number of ways. Similar uncertainties surround other classic wild flowers,
including spiked star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalium pyrenaicum) and, most
notably, snakes-head fritillary (Fritillaria melagris).^45 This beautiful plant,
now rare due to the destruction of its traditional habitats of meadows and
pastures, somehow escaped the notice of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
herbalists and others – even those who lived close to what were later to be
significant colonies. As the botanist George Claridge Druce put it in 1886,
‘It was not a little singular that the Fritillary, so conspicuous a plant of the