The Faux Amis

We should be thankful to Facebook for reminding us periodically that we are friends with our spouse and lifetime partner, our children and our siblings.

- Jean-Claude Melone

We are also, often by default, friends with many people we don’t even know, have never met but who happen to belong to the same extended social media groups as we do. But are all these self-occurring “e-Friends or i-Friends” trustworthy, just because they appear to share some common ground with us?

In the world-wide flora, unfortunately, there is a fastgrowing number of plant species which, having been introduced by mankind, often in small numbers originally, in a new country far away from their original habitat, have made themselves at home. These “faux-amis” have taken advantage of the prevailing hospitable conditions, multiplying and expanding fast and wide. They are now threatening the survival of established native species, in their own backyards. Concentrated occurrences of Phragmites can be observed on both sides of the E311. It is competing with Phoenix dactylifera and Salvadora persica planting, taking advantage of patches of wet sand generated by the adjacent drip irrigation. At the heart of the Arabian Ranches junction, under the road bridges, 4m high green walls of canes obliterate any potential vista of the landscaped area for motorists. Phragmites is extremely hard to eradicate or even control. It can reproduce by seeds carried by the wind and, if cut, it can also regenerate from deep rhizomes and fragments rooting.

Considered extremely invasive, it is already threatening to take over parts of the Everglades marshland in Florida. Some botanists consider that it has now “changed its behaviour” (quote), decreasing biodiversity amongst other marshland species.