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An archaeophyte is a

plant Plants are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all curr ...

species which is non-native to a geographical region, but which was an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived the ...

in "ancient" times, rather than being a modern introduction. Those arriving after are called neophytes. The cut-off date is usually the beginning of the early modern period (turn of the 15th or 16th century). In Britain, archaeophytes are considered to be those species first introduced prior to the year 1492, when

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

arrived in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

and the Columbian Exchange began.

Background

Archaeophytes include numerous

weed A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, "a plant in the wrong place", or a plant growing where it is not wanted.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. ...

species the seeds of which have been found in archaeological excavations - to which they had been brought by people (

anthropochory In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vecto ...

), animals (

zoochory In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, ...

) or the wind ( anemochory). In some cases, introduced species, whether archaeophytes or neophytes, may have been native species before the ice ages, which extirpated vast numbers of plant species. Central European archaeophytes almost all come from the

Mediterranean region In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and ...

and the neighboring areas of

Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes A ...

, as they were introduced into

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the ...

with the beginning of agriculture and increasingly since Roman times. They therefore include many familiar plants such as cultivated apples, pears, plums,

cereal A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more foo ...

s such as

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeolog ...

and

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley ...

as well as flowers and medicinal plants such as poppy, cornflower, real chamomile and corn. Australia's collision with the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

led to additional South-east Asian plants entering the Australian flora like the '' Lepidium'' and '' Chenopodioideae''. Moreover,

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the T ...

and New Guinean contact prior to rising sea levels that isolated Australia from

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

in the early Holocene may explain the presence of New Guinea domesticates such as taro (''

Colocasia esculenta Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Afri ...

'') and bananas (''

Musa acuminata ''Musa acuminata'' is a species of banana native to Southern Asia, its range comprising the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Many of the modern edible dessert bananas are from this species, although some are hybrids with '' Musa balbisian ...

'') in northern Australia. Assisted migrations may also be the reason why some rainforest plants from New Guinea entered northern Australia more than 10,000 years ago.

Examples

Archaeophytes are often cultivated species, transported deliberately by humans, but are also often weeds of cultivation, spread accidentally with grain. Archaeophytes in the United Kingdom include

sweet chestnut ''Castanea sativa'', the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived ...

, field poppy, flixweed, red valerian, ground elders, soapwort, small toadflax, good king henry and cornflower.Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society - Archaeophytes in Britain
/ref> Other examples include: * '' Agrostemma githago'' * '' Avena fatua'' * ''

Chenopodium polyspermum ''Lipandra polysperma'' (Syn. ''Chenopodium polyspermum''), common name manyseed goosefoot, is the only species of the monotypic plant genus ''Lipandra'' from the subfamily Chenopodioideae of the family Amaranthaceae. Description ''Lipandra ...

'' * ''

Euphorbia helioscopia ''Euphorbia helioscopia'', the sun spurge or madwoman's milk, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It is a herbaceous annual plant, native to most of Europe, northern Africa, and eastward through most of Asia.'' ...

'' * ''

Setaria viridis ''Setaria viridis'' is a species of grass known by many common names, including green foxtail, green bristlegrass, and wild foxtail millet. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of ''Setaria italica''. It is native to Eurasia, but it is known o ...

'' * '' Vicia hirsuta'' * '' Galium tricornutum''

References

{{Botany Botany Introduced plants

Background

Examples

See also

References