POACEAE (R.Br.) Barnhart, 1895

Mead, A., Carlton, J. T., Griffiths, C. L. & Rius, M., 2011, Introduced and cryptogenic marine and estuarine species of South Africa, Journal of Natural History 45 (39 - 40), pp. 2463-2524 : 2510-2511

Family POACEAE

Ammophila arenaria (Linnaeus, 1756) Introduced

This well-known European pioneer dune plant, known as marram grass, was intentionally imported to South Africa in 1876, via imported seed from Lincolnshire, UK, to stabilize sand dunes and to control drift sand ( Hertling and Lubke 1999a, 1999b, 2000). Much larger amounts of seed were then imported from France in 1892, with seedlings grown in Cape Town area nurseries. Extensive regions of coastal dunes were then planted between 1920 and 1996 between Saldanha (west coast) and Gonubie near East London (east coast); today, Ammophila is one of the predominant coastal dune plants in South Africa. Hertling and Lubke (2000) attributed its success to a combination of its ecological plasticity (ranging from its establishment from the semi-arid west coast to the subtropical Eastern Cape) and its “vigorous rhizomatous reproduction.” Hertling and Lubke (1999b) examined, using quantitative but not experimental approaches, the species richness, species diversity, relative abundance and species associations in dunes dominated by Ammophila and by indigenous vegetation; they found that while diversity indices are significantly lower in Ammophila -dominated systems, Ammophila arenaria “does not show extreme dominance to the exclusion of other species,” as it does in other regions of the world where it has been introduced (such as on the American Pacific coast). Knevel et al. (2004) found that both release from native (European) root herbivores and biotic resistance by soil pathogens affect the invasiveness of Ammophila in South Africa.

Spartina maritima (Curtis, 1787) Cryptogenic (= Spartina capensis Nees, 1841 )

Spartina maritima is widely distributed through western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and also occurs on the west coast of South Africa ( Chevalier, 1923, who suggested that this species is native to South Africa). Pierce (1982) argued that Spartina maritima is a European introduction. Adams et al. (1999) noted that the status of Spartina maritima as introduced has “not been fully resolved as the taxonomic history and ecology of the species does not seem to support this postulate;” their statement is, however, not supported by citations. Yannic et al. (2004) conducted genetic work on European Spartina maritima , although not on populations from South Africa. Spartina maritima was first described from South Africa as Spartina capensis on the basis of material collected in 1829 in the Swartkop River and now held in both the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and in the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Berlin-Dahlem (www.aluka.org; accessed August 2009). Pending further genetic evidence, we consider Spartina maritima as cryptogenic, and possibly introduced by solid ballast. If so, it would be one of South Africa’s first recorded marine invasions.