Paterson’s curse

This example illustrates the benefits and costs of introducing plants to new localities. Over the mere two hundred years of European settlement in Australia many of the World s most important crop and pasture plants and all of the World s worst weeds (Table I) have been introduced to the continent. The latter have attained problem status and several other introductions, such as Echium plantagineum L. (Paterson s Curse) from the Mediterranean region, freed from those organisms which maintain them in balance in their native communities, have posed threats to agriculture. 

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