When I have seen that, I figured that it meant that the plant was native in SOME states/counties and introduced in the others. Like something that naturally occurs in, say, Texas, but has been introduced into gardens in Maine.

I agree. Here is a perfect example.
http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=LANTA

That seems reasonable, but I'm not sure Gamochaeta coarctata is native anywhere in the U.S. Seems to be native to South America. It'd be interesting to find out what source that designation comes from and what's behind it.

I would have issues about both of those plants being "native" to the continental US. Both are only native to south or central America and only have naturalized in parts of the US where climatically adapted. 'Naturalized' is vastly different from a native species - in fact, that term is used frequently with exotics that are borderline invasive.

I'm not sure there is much validity in the concept of a plant being both native AND introduced. I might go so far as to acknowledge it referring to a true US native that has been planted/introduced outside its normal native range......like Hydrangea quercifolia....as being an example of this concept, but not the lantana nor the Gamochaeta.

Obviously, as an island much affected by glaciation, we have a tiny range of native flora and a much larger range of naturalised plants (our imperial adventures mainly)...although the native plant movement has zero traction in the UK, there has been a more environmental awareness creeping in. However, given the historical planthunting which categorised British horticulture, the native/non-native debate is truly slow-burning here...although given the current threats from globalisation (and the horrible news that Emerald Ash Borer is on its way to wipe out our Chalara threatened ash trees (and a new pathogen almost every week), this may change in the future.

There remains a sniff of suspicion that the native plant movement in the US has a slightly darker aspect relating to demonisation of the foreign (although, I emphasise, not from me).

Camp, I think that nativist cohort of the more general interest in native plants is just that-a separate entity, and not in and of itself the main push. That is, most native plant enthusiasts have nothing whatever to do with the other thing. Whether right or wrong, they (we?) are well-intended and have legitimate ecological concerns as the basis for their views. That Hitlerian natives-only thing is a tiny subset of a subset. And really dumb too!

Interesting, Camp. I would say that I have a somewhat different reaction to exotic species depending on where in the world they are from. I noticed recently that I am more welcoming to species that are from Europe or western Asia, such as Salvia nemorosa or Iris reticulata. If I hear a plant is from South America or Africa, I'm much less likely to want it in my yard.

I like to think this is because there's some similarity between the climate here and that of, say, Ukraine -- but I suppose it's possible that there's an ethnocentric bias mixed into it.

Interesting. I have no problem with plants from Mexico, cold hardiness is usually the deciding factor and the reason I don't have a plant, I've seen plenty I'd love to have growing. The same goes for South America because I think in terms of one American continent. I have some succulents and cactus that are from S. America that have proved hardy for me. If I could grow Aloes I certainly would and I envy wantanamara's ability to grow some of them since she's a zone south of me, although I do know she's gotten nipped by cold at times. The heartbreak of cold damage is something I'm familiar with since I do push the zones. I imagine many folks in San Antonio don't mind Mexico or South American plants.

If I lived up north, I'd probably wouldn't be anti-Canada when it comes to choosing plants for my landscape. Down here, they'd probably fry.

I understand each of the zones are getting warmer here in the US. Maybe a southern migration of plant species will be the result. For instance, there are some scattered areas of Live Oak growing in isolated pockets in Oklahoma and it makes me wonder if that tree has been adapting and moving south for some time? These are more cold hardy than the ones in south Texas so people in more northern parts of the US often ask us for acorns. I suppose those could be listed as native and non native if you were getting technical about it.

I always keep in mind that borders and state lines are introduced lines on maps and therefore man-made. I would never snub a plant from Texas, NM, Colorado etc if it will do well here. Some people don't think that way.

I'm growing the native Texas lantana, which is a bit rough looking and big, but have no issues with L. camera which is not even remotely invasive here like it is in Florida and elsewhere. These two plants have long been interbred to produce some really nice long blooming plants that will put up with our heat and drought. Creating beauty in spite of heat and drought along with saving water are much larger issues with me than native vs non.

European & Asian is where I draw the non-native line. It represents the old standard ideas in gardening to me and for a lack of a better term, those plants are unAmerican. African grasses, especially bermuda, are on my top ten lists of plants to hate and I'm not much fonder of some of the weedy grasses and weeds from Europe taking over the roadsides because they are ugly and are aggressive. Bradford Pear is at the top of my top ten hate list currently. The dense forests are finished blooming and are spreading like freight trains through the countryside. Even the Eastern Red Cedars are having trouble competing with these promiscuous thugs.

Speaking of the Ukraine, the west is plagued with Russian Thistle, its so bad the plants nearly bury towns when they blow and big equipment is required to dig out. Tumbleweeds seem so integrated that its hard not to think of the cowboy song 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds', western movies, Gunsmoke, Matt Dillon and Chester, cowboys and the old west without them but as most people around here know, they are not native.

Funny how we each have our own internal criteria. Me, I'm okay with plants from anywhere so long as they serve whatever purpose I have in mind, and are able to do so without running amok. That said, we don't always know ahead of time-excuse me-we don't ever know ahead of time what the next invasive species might turn out to be. I do tend to think though that non-native plants that have been in an area for a hundred or more years without taking over the place are okay to use. Of course,it's also true that each one of us has our own version of what "taking over the place" really consists of. To cite one example, dame's rocket-Hesperis matronalis-is often included in lists of "bad" invasive plants here in Wisconsin. Yet in every case where I see it, it is growing alongside some hell strip or in some brushy area where competing vegetation is almost completely non-native invasive junk itself. I have trouble killing the plant with the pretty flower because it's outcompeting some burdock or garlic mustard! But hey, that's just me! Now common buckthorn....or your Callery pear....those are hugely problematic and are indeed capable of pushing aside vast swaths of native plant communities, not just individual species. Those are the problems, not every non-native plant that becomes naturalized. That's my criteria. Continent of origin makes no difference. A European non-native plant is not somehow less non-native than an African non-native plant in my view.

I do make some effort to work with plants that are native to my immediate ecoregion and those neighboring it, especially towards the south, as I expect warming temperatures will cause flora and fauna to gradually migrate here from that direction. I look more closely at places with underlying limestone -- the Flint Hills, for instance -- rather than sandstone. I no longer really make a clean distinction between native and non-native. I consider things less native the farther away their native range is from here.

But I've relaxed quite a bit from my native purist stance, especially this year. I'm more concerned with getting the bare areas covered for the moment and improving visual appeal. I've got two shipments coming from Santa Rosa Gardens on Thursday with about 80 plants total. There isn't anything really native in the order unless you count Echinacea purpurea 'Virgin'. About half the order is a tray of Sesleria caerulea.

Speaking of which, TR, those Seslerias are at least one Eurasian plant that you like. I would say it's Sesleria autumnalis in particular that started me thinking more about plants from that particular part of the world -- southeastern Europe and the Caucasus region.

Oh, I absolutely admit to allowing cultural affinity dictate my choices. One of the really great things (for me) about participating in a mainly US forum, has been an exposure to US native plants. Apart from so-called prairie standards...and a very limited range of those, US plants are not really that fashionable in the UK ..and are rare and strange to me....and obviously, the language and our ability to communicate easily, is a prime mover. Shamefully, the very salient fact of US diversity and size has slipped my mind a lot since I have gleefully appropriated plants from across the entire zonal and continental range (although obvs, there are fails!)...so I don't even have an environmental excuse for my rabid curiosity. Still, because the horse bolted a long time ago, I can assure myself that shutting the stable door at this late time is pointless...so carry on regardless.

If, however, I lived in southern Europe - Crete or Cyprus for example, I could definitely appropriate a nativist outlook. I guess this makes me unprincipled and shallow (sigh).

I do have one South American plant, or at least I did, that black-and-blue Salvia that I think comes from Brazil. I was pretty sure that one wasn't going to invade, or even survive the winter.

I had S. guarantica for years, but no, no danger of invasiveness in zone 6/7. Tex, you mean the live oaks are migrating North, not South :)

There is also some plain disagreement on some plants and changing opinions through time. Some people considered Lantana horrida a non native but their voices have been drummed out of the literature in the last few years. I used to hear it , but now I can't find mention of its non nativeness anywhere. I think they said that it came over with some pre spanish immigrants, who ever they were. It has been here so long that german horticulturalist think it is native. I know not one way or the other, but it is a discussion that has faded in the last 15 years.

OOH I made a funny spelling mistake THAT I corrected, but I will share "Hoityculturalist".

I think the nature is always changing and evolving. Ginkos and horses were native to here.

"Apart from so-called prairie standards...and a very limited range of those, US plants are not really fashionable in the UK"

What is an 'American Plant'? And really--- Prairie standards? I'm curious what those are? There are so many different regions in the US that remarks like that make me wonder if there might be some stereotyping going on over there when people think of what an American plant is or an American garden or an American native. If its about prairie standards, they must think the US is one big prairie covered in grasses. Anyway, I get the impression that prairie plants = an American Look or some such notion like that is going on over there.

If true, its a distorted idea which leaves out a lot. The whole range of mountains covered in pines you have to cross before arriving in California not to mention the vast desert which has a distinct personality all its own. Then when you finally get to California, which is its own country, or at least it might as well be when it comes to plants that are indigenous its all completely different again.

Then there is the South and the deeper South and the very deep South and that whole distinct feeling, local plants and look down there which gets more distinct the further south you go until reaching the tropical stuff in Florida (complete with plastic pink flamingos in some yards) and those Florida-looking houses and plants that look like house plants growing in peoples yards, at least they do to an Okie like me. Then turning west from there its Bayou country which looks nothing even remotely like where I live plants-wise-- its weird down there and it smells fishy.... until you get to New Orleans which is not like anywhere else and I wouldn't like living there.

There's the Everglades, the forests in the Smokey Mountains, all the different beaches too numerous to mention, the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, the way up North (and the snobby NE & New England which is totally alien to some of us rubes down here) and on and on and on. The old mountain ranges (even Oklahoma has an very old one which I believe is the oldest mountain range in the country but its worn down to the nubbins so its not too tall but definitely not prairie) and the Mississippi delta with its own particular plants, look and feel, the Ozarks which also has its own distinctive look and plants.

Then there's the state of Texas. There must be a dozen completely different native landscape regions each with its own distinctive plants, feeling and look and thats just in the one state.

I like Hoity-toity-culturist myself. Sounds snobbier.

Course there is stereotyping going on, Tex. You don't think Brits are immune to making assumptions, surely? Truth is...and I have got into this with you before, by 'prairie' plants, in Brits (and other European designer's eyes), it is a limited range of Piet Oudolf plants - hence we all expect to see rudbeckias, stachys, sanguisorba, calamagrostis, coreopsis and certain hardy salvias. Now I know Oudolf is highly popular but he has also codified this small palette and helpfully written down his 'list' of 30 or so plants...so that every would be designer and garden centre manager in the UK now has what they fondly imagine is a full understanding of a 'prairie'.

I am heartily sick of this kind of thing - bored, impatient and a tad disgusted that a fabulous and varied ecolgy can be condensed into a handful of (easily propagated - Foerster et al were originally nurserymen) plants which have stood in as a sort of shorthand designer trope. The fault, I hasten to add, in no way lies with Oudolf and his generation...but with a whole slew of lazy, sheep-like designers who have been pushing the 'New perennial' movement and have reduced an exciting possibility down to a simplified and very dogmatic set of rules - no woodies for one (which I know you probably like, but I don't). Not all of them - there are still visionaries out there - Tom Stuart-Smith for one but... This is marketing, lifestyle, the latest fashion and when removed from it's culture and geography, this idea of a prairie usually looks utterly ridiculous and inappropriate in a small urban UK garden... and herein rests my own, equally fixed and fervent reasoning...because I am not immune to stereotyping (and snobbishness) either.

No matter though - I am looking forward to my eryngium yuccifolium (or, as I have taken to calling it, in line with US folk language - rattlesnake master), along with a white callirhoe I have never seen in the UK...and hoping for a repeat of a very late flowering cowpen daisy.

Many years ago, I decided (when I first had access to sunny space) to create what I loosely imagined was a 'californian meadow' (does such a thing even exist?) I had great fun with escholzia, platystemon, phacelia and those red paintbrush flowers...but had an equal number of S.African daisies (osteos, ursinia, arctotis)...obviously, as much 'Californian' as I am. I don't have the discipline or the depth of knowledge to be a purist - my middle name is dilettante.

Camp, I got you the first time! In fact, that was your exact point in your earlier post-that your British take on "American" plants was perforce rather truncated.

But what I'm really piping back into this one to say is, I hope you do writing as well! Your posts are often highly amusing and clever.

Oh, and Cali certainly does have meadows! As TR states, it could as well be its own country, and nearly every ecotype is or was found there. I believe this still holds true-that no state has lost as many species (to human activity) as California.

One of the books I use a lot is Roy Diblik's The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden. It's similar to what you describe, Camp, a limited range of plants and includes many of the Oudolf favorites. I think it's a great book for less experienced gardeners (including myself), though. Around here most people are still going with the lawn and mulched beds look, lots of little shrubs like euonymus and barberry, bulbs, hostas, etc. It's tough for someone coming from that mindset to shift to a prairie or new perennials style. That limited range along with a set of garden plans helps keep it simple and manageable while you're getting your feet wet. We are definitely not approaching saturation with that style around here. I rarely see anything like it in my neighborhood.

I go back and forth about it, though. Over at the local nursery they have a whole bunch of Stachys 'Hummelo'. I look at it every time I go there. I'm sure it's a nice garden plant, but I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on it. It just doesn't have the right feel somehow. Maybe it's the Hummelo name, too obvious.

What I'd love to get to is something like TR has done, something more personal and drawing heavily on the surrounding countryside. For now I just have so much space to fill and I'm leaning heavily on Diblik, etc.

Many "woodies" are included in the mix of Texas perennial scene. Evergreen Sumac, Texas Mountain laurel, flame acanthus, Mexican Orchid tree, , just too name a few. The list is MUCH longer, believe me. I saw the "prairie" at the Palmengarten (sp?) and there was a mix of european, american and asian. I did laugh at the snapdragons in the prairie. It was pretty but not what I would think a "prairie"

Diblik gave a talk at a workshop I attended last year. Good talk overall but he really lost me with one pronouncement: In talking about such plantings, he decried the number of species per square foot he was seeing installed. I don't remember his guideline number, but it sounded utterly unnatural to me. I've been looking at "nature" a long time, and it is not a perfectly homogenized mixture of species everywhere every time. Far from it, plants tend to form colonies which tend to bleed into other colonies of other species and on and an-on ad infinitum. I thought he was way off-base on that and a few other things.

I'm on the fence-and it has a sharpened top rail I might add-on this whole thing too. I applaud some of it but I also think it's throwing people way off. Just the mere fact that whenever someone talks about "native vegetation", they tend to automatically start form a point that eliminates 90% of the actual plants that "would be there"...which in my part of the world have woody stems and roots, get very tall, and are called "trees"...........that just gets completely ignored. As if planting a bunch of coneflower is going to save the world or some such nonsense. To me, it's just become another marketing tool, and often not a very helpful one at that.

The idea of an 'American Prairie Garden' popping up in places like England reminds me of a few years back when 'The Santa Fe Style' became all the rage in the US. Books were published and home & garden ideas abounded. After the new wore off, stuff was showing up at places such as Dollar Saver and Walmart, items from towels to toothbrush holders to lamps. Furniture stores entirely devoted to the SF style sprang up around here. Then the Colorado style crept in and sort of overlapped it. Pines, the log cabin-look, rustic etc.

The American Prairie Look craze, if thats what it is, offers the nice perk of letting people imagine they are being ecologically friendly for a change and they can feel good for planting 'a tiny butterfly garden' to save the planet (even if other critters are not welcome). I think thats part of the 'sell'-- the Feel Good aspect.

When things like gardens are merely styles, they tend to come and go, get over done, then people get tired of them and want something new. At this point they are described as 'outdated'. Anyone still doing that is sorely behind the trend. That sounds like the situation you are describing in England.

Its great to visit a region that has its own authenticity and ambience, a place that looks like what you expected and different than where you live. I guess what bothers me about these trends is the way they tend homogenize the whole country and even leak out into the UK. I've mentioned several times how glad I am to see Oklahoma City adopting the so called 'American Prairie Garden'. The thing is, it should not be considered a trend toward a style, rather its a long overdue appreciation of the surrounding countryside down here. Personally I'm so tired of the boring homogenized look that is made up almost entirely of non native plants.

The concerns of conservation, invasive species, growing strictly native etc that gives some people the impression that Americans are over zealous is an entirely different matter than choices of plants for landscaping and gardening. People are passionate about both subjects but they are two distinct subjects. From what I can gather, impressions people have seems to be a result of confusion over who is talking about what.

When I discuss selecting plants for my garden its a different matter than my concern over some of the horrors I've seen popping up (or disappearing) in the countryside. The two things only overlap in the sense that I would avoid activities such as intentionally adding invasive species just because I selfishly liked a plant or digging up, for example, cactus in the wild because I selfishly wanted it in my garden. It doesn't mean I am a slave to local native plants only in my own yard although that is exactly what I want to be able to keep seeing in the countryside, so I try to be careful and hope others are careful too.

Yes, many strands to this debate. I think it becomes painful when a trend or a style becomes conflated with an actual ecology with no attempt to add any deeper context other than aesthetic or fashionable principles...so I am going to refer to 'prairie style' plants as a loosely defined shorthand for a particular 'look'.

Anyways, although this is even more OT, I wanted to add another reason to be drawn into this forum...and that is the emphasis on common, proven survivors rather than expensive over-hyped hybrids. Partly because I am both broke (jobbing gardener) and tight-fisted but also because I am besotted with the actual growing of plants from seed and cuttings...and those over-bred fancy hemerocallis, hostas and epimediums just don't fit in with my current gardening philosophy. Personally, I don't want sterile plants, even if they bloom forever...nor do I want 300 ever so slightly different geums...not that I haven't wandered down the collectible rarity highway in the past - just not interested at the moment...and if I get a wider appreciation of concepts such as invasive, then the benefit is all mine.

I agree, Woodsy - TR's garden is truly lovely (but she is an artist!).

I got off topic because there's not a whole lot to say about why some plants are designated native and introduced in some official listing. I couple sentences is about all I can offer up and even so, my lantana's aren't native, they are just listed either/or. Often my response is "so what?" to such things. Zone limitations is a real good example, one of my favorites to break the rules on and I might add, I've been correct more often than not with doubting that cold hardy rating. Is anyone a slave to those numbers? Or, state lines & borders on maps? Maybe if a plant naturalized a couple hundred years ago like dandelions did, you might have to start calling them native? Whatever the case, there's not a whole hell of a lot you can do about any of it, neither the official native vs introduced designation or the plants growing everywhere.

Why do we really have to stay strictly on topic anyway? I never think we do (obviously). Personally I enjoy the tributaries that get started more than the original topics in most cases. I suppose it probably gets on some people's nerves but if I do wander a lot, it definitely won't be the first or last time I've gotten on someone's nerves as you should well know Camps. My mind is geared toward tangents because just about everything reminds me of something else.

Interesting philosophical discussion and thanks, WoodsTea 6a MO, for finding & pasting that explanation from the website. I was specifically interested in why USDA plants database would have that dual indication. That's the one thing I use that site for, to check whether or not a plant is a native.

In a slightly different direction, "nativars" could be said to be both native and introductions-in this case, to the marketplace. I'm sure we all know this but it is another facet, and quite frankly, as one gets into the purported benefits of using native plants in landscape design, a potentially worrisome one. Like Camp's mention of plants that bloom forever, never set seed, provide no pollen or nectar to wildlife, blah blah blah....it all fits in there somewhere.

Indeed, it is really only where people are quite concerned with species other than Homo s. that we hear or read about someone being thrilled because their tree is being defoliated by caterpillars! A very different mindset to just wanting "curb appeal".

Seems to me the reason there is a problem, if it is a problem, of people growing nativars is the lack of access to plants and seed sources. On the one hand we don't want a lot of people combing their local countryside for seeds and plants but on the other hand if we want a certain plant oftentimes the only source is far from home, available only on an internet site selling seeds and plants, trades on GW or Dave's Garden or a nursery grown plant sold locally that came from who knows where.

There will be some people who are critical -- whether you report that you acquired your source from the wild or if you bought a nativar.

Nativars often set seed and the volunteers are missing the very nativar-ness that made the parent 'special' and tempting to buyers. You end up with the plain jane original plants coming up 'like weeds'. The advice is to cull out those ugly devils because they won't have the special trait, whatever it is. That always makes me laugh and think nature is in charge.

If purity is based strictly on growing exclusively local genotypes, several of the plants I grow are introduced and native at the same time. They aren't native to Oklahoma but they are natives in other states.

Yeah it gets mixed up pretty fast. We're "natural" too so sometimes after my hands have been thrown up in the air, I settle back down on that fact, for whatever that's worth. But one thing with nativars that is almost always a feature is their being lower-growing than the wild plant. And in all honesty, as a sometimes-designer of display beds and even my own home landscaping, that is a most useful trait. Then too, even among gardeners who are not trying to grow native plants, certain cultivars of certain perennials might also seed out progeny that differ from the store-bought parents and those too are frequently rogued out, or it's just that the designer would prefer this plant here..not everywhere...so once again, seedlings are eliminated. It's not so much that nature is regaining the upper hand in these cases as it's just a requirement for the aesthetics of the composition.

Somebody up yonder mentioned Stachys 'Hummelo'. I've got that non-native bastard along my fence in the back yard. It's a good'n if you like bees and pretty flowers. Kind of like how purple loosestrife is maybe one of the most magnificent pollen/nectar plants of all time...........yet look at the reputation that thing's got. It's all mixed up. Only harsh, strict dogma is easily toppled in this world!

Perhaps I'll give that Stachys a try. One of my main goals this year is more nectar plants. Previously I was concentrating more on butterfly host plants. I need more stuff for the adults to feed on.

As far as natives go I have been making some effort lately to bring small groups of a particular species in from different sources. Seems like a good practice in terms of genetic diversity, plus I'm interested to see how the different groups as well as their offspring may differ in appearance or performance.

I agree about height, Tom -- also floppiness is a concern, particularly with grasses.

Tiffany, the main website I use for that purpose is BONAP. I like the interface better and my understanding is that is based on a larger set of data:

USDA vs. BONAP

Ya know, take one of the scenes down by Wanto or Tex-in my imagination at least-a rolling plain of grasses and forbs as far as the eye can see....who cares how tall the plants get? IT's the scale of the thing that matters. An actual prairie scene is a great thing. But mostly we gardeners are creating planting "beds" of a rather limited size. And it is in these flower beds that it can be difficult to incorporate tall-growing stuff. My ideal display beds in this city are those where I've managed to scale everything down. It just looks better. This has nothing to do with whether or not the plants in question are native, non-native, or from the moon. It's just aesthetics, and lower-growing works.