They can run, but they can´t hide

The book under review is called "Alien plants of the British Isles. A provisional catalogue of vascular plants (excluding grasses)". It's written by E.J. Clement and M.C. Foster featuring D.H. Kent. This is not a field guide or identification guide, but a catalogue or checklist. Each entry is very short and there are no illustrations.

Still, I was weirdly fascinated by this book... The information included is extremely detailed, worthy of some superpower intelligence service. Or the Illuminati, perhaps? It seems botany enthusiasts have mapped every little garden plot or meadow in Britain. Nothing seems to have escaped these guys. Can they be useful for more sensitive operations as well, I wonder?

Here are some examples of the CIA-like knowledge contained in this volume. Krauss's Clubmoss, originally from Africa, is "an established greenhouse escape". It's reported to have persisted for at least 50 years in Kilberry Castle lawn (Kintyre). The so-called American Maidenhair-fern is a garden escape established on a bridge near Virgina Water (Berkshire), probably now gone, also on a wall of a fern nursery at Kingston Lacy (Dorset). Ha, you can run, but you can't hide! And then, there's the Spider Brake: "A greenhouse escape which persisted for a few years in a basement enclosure in Bristol." Others are apparently easier to spot. The pesky Lawn Lobelia is a lawn weed in botanic gardens all over Britain! A bad move for an illegal alien anytime. A more sinister strategy is used by the Blue Woodruff, but our amateur spooks have discovered the security breach: it's a "bird-seed alien", spread by contaminated bird seed placed in feeders by unsuspecting British subjects.

Still, that does mean it can pop up *anywhere* near *you*. Have the Home Department been informed about this, I wonder?

OK, this is definitely my kind of humour. Five stars! But no medal, unless you catch that "Blue" Woodruff (it's really a red one, trust me). The Russians can't cheat me they can't!