Abstract
THE appearance of considerable numbers of plants of Buddleia variabilis on a bombed site in Kensington, as recorded in NATURE1, is not an isolated case. During a recent study of the flora of the site of three bombed houses in Kew, numerous Buddleia plants were found. The houses were bombed in the autumn of 1940 and the sites cleared in the following spring. In addition to many weeds characteristic of wasteground there are at least sixty Buddleias. Some of these are 5–6 ft. in height and have bloomed freely ; others are smaller plants but many have also flowered. There are no Buddleias in the gardens of these three houses, and I have not identified the parent plant, but Buddleias are present in the neighbourhood though at some distance. Buddleia seeds are extremely small and have certainly reached the site by being wind-blown. The success of the plants is probably largely due to their long, sturdy tap-roots, which have been able to penetrate the hard downtrodden surface material and to reach the sandy subsoil.
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NATURE, 150, 320 (1942).
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SHOVE, R. Buddleias on a Bombed Site. Nature 150, 463 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150463a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150463a0
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