new pangea

"new pangea" is a term some biologists use to describe the way transportation technology used in global commerce and travel have allowed organism to overcome natural barriers to their expansion, such as oceans, and spread to areas far outside their range in a way that hasn't been possible since the earth's landmass was a single continent...it has also allowed the rapid spread of invasive species into new territories where they have left behind competitors and predators which allows them to expand their populations well beyond what would have been possible in their native ranges...a process called "enemy release"...assisted plant movement is not a new phenomenon...humans have moved plants as long as they have been moving to the extent that in many places non-native plants outnumber native species...so i decided to have a look around the garden today..and the next two posts tell the story...this post deals with the non-natives and i am including plants that originated in this hemisphere but not this continent in the list...from top to bottom: cucumbers from india...mashua from the andean region...potatoes form thesame...tomatoes from central america...spinach from sasanian persia...green peepers from central america...asparagus from europe, western asia, northern africa...most of these were moved by indigenous peoples or came via the "columbian exchange" after the arrival of europeans in the western hemisphere...the collards in the bottom picture may actually be pangean...know to both the indigenous peoples of the americas and the romans they are a dinosaur among vegetables...they were in two places at once.