> On 27 June 2018 at 13:32 "Daniel J. Matyola" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Every year, around Fathers Day, my carpets of prickly pear cactus burst > forth into luxurious blooms: > > http://dan-matyola.squarespace.com/danmatyolas-pesos/2018/6/24/prickly-pear
Very nicely framed and very spectacular. Every time Prickly Pear is mentioned it brings to mind the devastation that the plant caused to farmland in Australia in the early part of the 20th century. It was introduced here in mid 1800s and at its peak in the late 1920s covered almost 25 million hectares. In one of the most spectacular examples of biological control, it was tamed by millions of larvae of a moth (appropriately named Cactoblastis) which chomped their way through the prickly pest. There is even a memorial to the Cactoblastis moth: http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/disaster/plagues/display/91971-cactoblastis-memorial Cheers Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian Walters Western Sydney Australia http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ https://500px.com/supera1000/galleries -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
