COLONISATION AND EXOT ICS : THE GLOBAL SPREAD OF PRICKLY PEARAND ITS ORIGINS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Prickly pear has become deeply embedded in Eastern Cape society. But how and when did these exotics from Mexico spread so widely in South Africa? There is not a great deal of specific information before the 1830s. We have to imagine the context and the different possibilities – the clues in names and odd references in texts. In general, however, prickly pear gained a foothold in part because of its remarkable properties of reproduction and survival, in part because of human intervention and in part because of the specific ecology of the Eastern Cape. The roots of its success lay in the interplay of human and environmental factors and it is important to note that not only people, but a number of indigenous species, found this spiny exotic to their liking and – in their opportunistic search for nectar and fruit – helped it on its way. Invasives can displace some indigenous species, but they can benefit others.

Colonisation in general, and farming in particular, precipitated the introduction of many alien plant species with unpredictable results. Some were brought intentionally as food crops and some came by chance, either mixed with grain seeds or by other means along the trade routes of empire. Dutch officials perceived a wood shortage from the very earliest years of their settlement in the seventeenth century. Exotic trees were planted for timber, shade and firewood. Although the Cape proved rich in indigenous flowering plants, many new species were introduced for aesthetic reasons in gardens. Thunberg, the Swedish scientific traveller, commented sharply on the transformation of the Cape by the 1770s that ‘[in] a country where, 150 years ago … herds only grazed, one now sees several Indian and most of our European seeds cultivated, vineyards and orchards laid out, and culinary vegetables planted’.

Prickly pear was the subject of curiosity from the beginning of transatlantic exchanges. The earliest Spanish conquistadors ‘could not fail to notice the presence all around of nopalli’. The term ‘tuna’, a Caribbean word meaning fruit or seed, was recorded when the Spanish ate the fruit in Haiti around 1515.