Introduction To Western Europe and North America
Giant hogweed was among many foreign plants introduced to Britain in the 19th century, mainly for ornamental reasons. It is now widespread throughout the British Isles, especially along riverbanks. By forming dense stands, they can displace native plants and reduce wildlife interests. It has also spread in the northeastern and northwestern United States and central and eastern Canada. It is equally a pernicious invasive species in Germany, France and Belgium, overtaking the local species. It was introduced in France in the 19th century by botanists, where it is much appreciated by beekeepers.
In the song "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" by Genesis, from their 1971 album Nursery Cryme, the history of the plant's introduction to Britain is humorously recounted, and the dangers of plant are portrayed facetiously in lines such as: "Turn and run! Nothing can stop them, around every river and canal their power is growing".
Read more about this topic: Heracleum Mantegazzianum
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“I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For better or worse, stepparenting is self-conscious parenting. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
—Anonymous Parent. Making It as a Stepparent, by Claire Berman, introduction (1980, repr. 1986)
“For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.”
—Jacques Attali (b. 1943)
“We are participants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world.... We are partners with the rest. What affects mankind is inevitably our affair as well as the nations of Europe and Asia.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“I can never suppose this country so far lost to all ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant America independence; if that could ever be adopted I shall despair of this country being ever preserved from a state of inferiority and consequently falling into a very low class among the European States.”
—George III (1738–1820)