A photo from open sources
In 1820, the German Carl Friedrich Eichorn visited Brazil, where stumbled upon an amazingly beautiful aquatic plant with blue flowers. Subsequently, it was called Eichornia excellent, or water hyacinth. However in the united states its began unofficially dubbed the “blue plague” because of the massive invasive spread of the plant.
Invasive species are plants and animals that accidentally introduced by humans beyond the natural habitat or they’re not spreading to where they should have been created human corridors. There they successfully take root, intensely multiply and eventually capture new regions, starting pose a threat to local biological balance.
A photo from open sources
Eichornia excellent lives in water or, in extreme cases, on wet soil. The stem and leaves of water hyacinth are peculiar sponges holding air bubbles and not allowing the plant to drown. The breeding rate of this species is extremely high. One a tiny stalk can produce over a hundred thousand processes per year. Therefore, if excellent ejhornia falls into a body of water, on its after some time, a dense “floating carpet” of stems, leaves, roots and flowers. For this “natural palace” can even be walked carefully.
How Eichornia excellent appeared in America
However, the negative effects of hyacinth on the place where it multiplies intensely. The pond becomes non-navigable, he ceases to suffice air and the sun thanks to what fish perish and its other inhabitants. Americans have learned all the “charms” coexistence with such a plant. Here is its distribution at one time turned into a real natural disaster, and the fault according to urban myth, there was only one hospitable lady.
In 1884, a grandiose flower show was held in New Orleans, on which species were presented from almost all ends of the earth. According to this popular legend, a certain housewife from Florida saw water hyacinth at the event, and hitherto unknown flowers she really liked her pale blue and pale lilac coloring book. The woman seized a convenient moment and quietly tore off imagine a couple of sprouts of eichornia.
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She planted them in her pond, and soon a tiny pond completely covered with a flowering “carpet”. This metamorphosis was so impressive to our heroine that she decided to share her wealth with fellow countrymen. The housewife took sprouts of eichornia excellent and threw in St. Johns River. Over the next years, hyacinth spontaneously has grown here, resulting in many Florida rivers and channels were covered with its strong plexuses. It became real a disaster, since the thickets of Eichhornia prevented ships from going, they clogged pipes and pumps, leading to the death of fish and water damage.
The fight for ecosystem conservation
At first, soldiers were involved in the fight against the pest plant, which cut down the thickets of hyacinth. However, this approach turned out to be completely ineffective. Then dynamite went into action, but now the effect turned out to be the exact opposite – fragments of the explosion plants flew long distances and the pest captured as a result of this ill-conceived tactics, only new territories. Eichornia was also poisoned with arsenic, and although this gave some visible positive results, however, along with the ill-fated plant other representatives of flora and fauna perished, therefore, from such I also had to refuse the method.
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To destroy hyacinth, manatees were brought to Mississippi. When it turned out that these aquatic mammals even eat the plant, but very slowly, American scientists have deduced three species weevils eating exclusively eichhornia. Natural restoration of biological balance also played a role, and the hyacinth population in the States subsequently declined significantly. Today this weed can modestly please your eye on many American ponds and rivers, but he’s no more trouble does not create.
The Brazilian prolific flower also managed to spread to Australia, Indochina, Indonesia, China, Africa, India, on Madagascar and other regions of the world. In Sudan, it has grown so that because of it, many fishing villages were empty. Residents of the state even asked the UN agricultural department for help, and employees of the organization began the fight against the “blue plague” in Africa.
A photo from open sources
However, in China and Vietnam, Eichornia did not become a disaster, and even opposite. It turned out that this is an excellent feed for pigs, buffalos and other cattle, which is why they even planted specially hyacinth ponds. In some countries this amazing plant is used. as organic fertilizer and biogas feedstock. Besides Moreover, hyacinth allows you to clean ponds from insecticides, phosphates, phenols and heavy metals. In general, as it turned out, not so scary heck…
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