In Defense of Nature

 

Bradford Pear—Nativists Making A Big Stink about Nothing

This huge Bradford Pear has obviously grown for decades in this Albemarle County, Virginia, yard. If its spring blossoms were truly as “bad-smelling” as virtually every nativist-written article declares, you can bet it would have been long since removed.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

According to the “fact” sheet (much of the information is inaccurate or misleading) of the Blue Ridge Prism (“a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to reducing the negative impact of invasive plants in the northern Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia”), the Bradford Pear (Pyrus calleryana) is “a scourge upon the agricultural and natural world.”

 

https://blueridgeprism.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Bradford-Pear-Factsheet-2021-9-9-v1-FINAL.pdf

 

The reason given in support of this statement is that it “quickly spread[s] and replace[s] desirable plants in invaded areas.” However, the proclamation that alien plants “replace” or “push out” native plants is misleading.

 

For example, I regularly walk along a section of nearby road where I’ve been watching the spread of Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus) for the past 36 years.

 

 

What I’ve observed with these plants (and all the alien plants I’ve taken photos of over the course of decades) is that they germinate in spots where there is nothing else occupying that site. Indeed, physics tells us this must be the case as no two physical objects can occupy the same space simultaneously.

 

Thus, so-called invasive plants usually start life where there is an empty site for them to grow. The only way they can spread is if there’s plenty of barren land for them to fill, as often happens with Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) growing in worn-out (devoid of nitrogen from years of use) farm fields.

 

The only way any plant can “replace” another plant is if its growth habit over the course of years provides it with some advantage that other plants vying for the space don’t possess. But! The erroneous assumption always made by nativists is that native-plant species were growing in that field prior to the arrival of the Autumn Olive and they were outcompeted, which simply isn’t true. Very few native plants can survive in poor soil, and the ones that do—mainly Virginia Red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana), Broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus), and Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana) where I live—often join Autumn Olive in such areas.

 

It’s a truism that anywhere you see lots of nonnative plants growing, you can bet the soil has been disturbed and is not conducive to the growth of native plants. If it were, indeed, capable of supporting such “desirable” plants (a prejudiced judgement on the part of the PRISM writer), you can trust there would be native plants growing there.

 

So why are some people making such a big stink about Bradford Pear trees? Well, according to nativists, these tree blossoms do literally stink, and you shouldn’t plant them.

 

The PRISM “fact” sheet calls them “malodorous” and “bad-smelling”, and suggests “the flowers give off a stink reminiscent of unwashed gym socks.” Other writers suggest a much worse odor. A Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer newspaper writer wrote, “Their stench has been compared to rotting fish, urine and other pungent bodily fluids.”

 

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article259195743.html#storylink=cpythem

 

Yet the dishonesty of all these descriptions is easy to discern. Do you really think anyone would leave these trees standing in their yards if they smelled as bad as suggested above? Of course not. These trees can be viewed in an abundance of yards, and their size tells you they’ve been growing there for numerous years. One can only conclude the owners don’t have a problem with these early spring-blooming floriferous trees.

 

I can provide an especially telling example to illustrate that people who suggest Bradford Pears stink are either not familiar with them, or they are deliberately spreading disinformation to try to keep people from buying/planting them.

 

I have taken the same road to Charlottesville, Virginia, for the past 36 years. In 1994, a humongous house was constructed on this road (5500 finished square feet comprises the house, and 1600 of 3400 square feet are finished in the basement). The owners had dozens of Bradford Pears planted; many went in along both sides of their long driveway right to the house, and quite a few were planted along the road to either side of their driveway.

 

These folks lived in their house until 2013, and they never removed the Bradford Pear trees, which they could have well afforded to do if they had to endure a stench every spring. Even the people who moved in when the house was almost twenty years old have kept the trees along both sides of the driveway for the past nine years. (They did eventually replace the ones along the road that were broken when severe winds [a possible tornado] went through the area.)

 

I can assure you that if these trees provided a foul stench every spring, either of the two different owners could have afforded to get all of them removed—after all, we are talking about people who can afford to live in a house valued at three million dollars.

 

So, if you have Bradford Pear trees on your property, should you get rid of them based upon the information provided by the PRISM writer or the newspaper writer? Absolutely not.

 

Either out of dishonesty or ignorance, the PRISM writer basically blames “starlings, an introduced species” for spreading these “weed trees across the built and natural landscape”. But several native species find survival assistance from the fruits of Bradford Pears. Flocks of American Robins and Cedar Waxwings, both of which depend upon fruits in winter, relish these fruits. Which is a better choice for the environment—keeping trees that provide for wildlife or pesticiding these trees and adding poison to our landscape?

 

Pay no heed to these folks who’ll say anything to manipulate you.

NATURE ADVICE:

 

The push for folks to remove so-called invasive plants is misguided because it’s extremely destructive of functioning habitat. It also makes much use of pesticides, which can kill animals as well as plants, including microorganisms within the soil. Lastly, the folks pushing this agenda do not really know why they are against these alien plants, other than that they believe we need more native plants. But their arguments do not pass muster.

 

It’s much better for our world to allow wildlife to call the shots. If nativists observed these alien plants with open minds, they would clearly see that our wildlife makes abundant use of “invasive” species. Mature plants—even if alien—provide habitat while bare ground does not. Even if young native species are planted where “invasives” are removed, it will be years before the area yields habitat.

 

It's bad enough our wildlife is losing ground to buildings and pavement covering the ground, as well as people’s ideas of what a created landscape should look like (mainly lawn). We don’t need people crazily demanding the removal of alien plants when they don’t have valid reasons for doing so.