The term
Exotic plants is often used to describe plant species that have been, or are being,
introduced in to parts of the world other than their historical or documented range by humans, often as
ornamental plants. Exotics are frequently utilized in the
garden, but are also kept in
greenhouses or as
houseplants.
While no plant species has ever been documented driving another species to extinction, exotics that escape from gardens are often labeled
invasive species thought to outcompete native flora. In reality, however, this phenomena is exclusively a result of other
anthropogenic activities such as fertilizer runoff or habitat disruption/destruction. Only humans and a handful of domesticated mammalian species (particularly
cats and
pigs) have ever been directly responsible for the extinction of another species.
The following examples are types of plants that have, at some point in their evolutionary history, experienced some sort of evolutionary shock or shocks that have enabled them to thrive in a wide variety of ecological niches rather than the one or two they had previously inhabited. This is a natural process, carried out by migratory birds, ocean currents, wind, rivers, and other natural phenomena. Apparently the modern notions of "native" and "exotic" species have arisen out of "multiple psychopathologies of nativism" whose "foundational concepts and logical structure...are identical to whose of the discredited ideologies of xenophobia, racism, nationalism, and fascism..." (Theodoropoulos, 2003:122).
Examples of exotic plants
Examples of Exotic Invasives
- Some Bamboo (Poaceae: Bambuseae)
See also
