The “Extinct” Grass in Britain
Bromus interruptus, commonly known as the interrupted brome, is a plant in the true grass family. Called
interrupted brome because of its gappy seed-head, this unprepossessing grass was found nowhere else in
the world. Sharp-eyed Victorian botanists were the first to notice it, and by the 1920s the odd-looking
grass had been found across much of southern England. Yet its decline was just as dramatic. By 1972 it
had vanished from its last toehold—two hay fields at Pampisford, near Cambridge. Even the seeds stored
at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden as an insurance policy were dead, having been mistakenly kept
at room temperature. Botanists mourned: a unique living entity was gone forever.
Yet reports of its demise proved premature. Interrupted brome has come back from the dead, and not
through any fancy genetic engineering. Thanks to one green-fingered botanist, interrupted brome is alive
and well living as a pot plant. It’s Britain’s dodo, which is about to become a phoenix, as
conservationists set about relaunching its career in the wild.
At first, Philip Smith was unaware that the scrawny pots of grass on his bench were all that remained of
a uniquely British species. But when news of the “extinction” of Bromus interruptus finally
reached him, he decided to astonish his colleagues. He seized his opportunity at a meeting of the
Botanical Society of the British Isles in Manchester in 1979, where he was booked to talk about his
research on the evolution of the brome grasses. It was sad, he said, that interrupted brome had become
extinct. Then he whipped out two enormous pots of it. The extinct grass was very much alive. It turned
out that Smith had collected seeds from the brome’s last refuge at Pampisford in 1963, shortly before
the species disappeared from the wild altogether. Ever since then, Smith had grown the grass on, year
after year. So in the end the hapless grass survived not through some high-powered conservation scheme
or fancy genetic manipulation, but simply because one man was interested in it. As Smith points out,
interrupted brome isn’t particularly attractive and has no commercial value.
The brome’s future, at least in cultivation, now seems assured. Seeds from Smith’s plants have been
securely stored in the state-of-the-art Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place in Sussex. And living
plants thrive at the botanic gardens at Kew, Edinburgh and Cambridge. This year, “bulking up” is under
way to make sure there are plenty of plants in all the gardens, and sacksful of seeds are being
stockpiled at strategic sites throughout the country. The brome’s relaunch into the British countryside
is next on the agenda. English Nature has included interrupted brome in its Species Recovery Programme,
and it is on track to be reintroduced into the agricultural landscape, if friendly farmers can be found.
The brome was probably never common enough to irritate farmers, but no one would value it today for its
productivity or its nutritious qualities. As a grass, it leaves agriculturalists cold.
So where did it come from? Smith’s research into the taxonomy of the brome grasses suggests that
interrupted brome almost certainly mutated from another weedy grass, soft brome, Bromus
hordeaceus. So close is the relationship that interrupted brome was originally deemed to be a
mere variety of soft brome by the great Victorian taxonomist Professor Hackel. But in 1895, George
Claridge Druce, a 45-year-old Oxford pharmacist with a shop on the High Street, decided that it deserved
species status, and convinced the botanical world. Druce was by then well on his way to fame as an
Oxford don, mayor of the city, and a fellow of the Royal Society.
The brome’s parentage may be clear, but the timing of its birth is more obscure. A clue lies in its
penchant for growing as a weed in fields sown with a fodder crop—particularly nitrogen-fixing legumes
such as sainfoin, lucerne or clover. According to agricultural historian Joan Thirsk, sainfoin and its
friends made their first modest appearance in Britain in the early 1600s. Seeds brought in from the
Continent were sown in pastures to feed horses and other livestock. And by 1650 the legumes were
increasingly introduced into arable rotations, to serve as “green manure” to boost grain yields. A
bestseller of its day, Nathaniel Fiennes’s Sainfoin Improved, published in 1671, helped to
spread the word.
Although the credit for the “discovery” of interrupted brome goes to a Miss A.M. Barnard, who collected
the first specimens at Odsey, Bedfordshire, in 1849, the grass had probably lurked undetected in the
English countryside for at least a hundred years. Smith thinks the botanical dodo probably evolved in
the late 17th or early 18th century, once sainfoin became established. The brome’s fortunes then
declined dramatically over the 20th century, not least because the advent of the motor car destroyed the
market for fodder crops for horses.
Like many once-common arable weeds, such as the corncockle, the seeds of interrupted brome cannot survive
long in the soil. Each spring, the brome relied on farmers to resow its seeds; in the days before
weedkillers and sophisticated seed sieves, an ample supply would have contaminated stocks of crop seed.
But fragile seeds are not the brome’s only problem: this species is also reluctant to release its seeds
as they ripen. Show it a ploughed field today and this grass will struggle to survive, says Smith. It
will be difficult to establish in today’s “improved” agricultural landscape, inhabited by notoriously
vigorous competitors.
Interrupted brome’s reluctance to spread under its own steam could have advantages, however. Any farmer
willing to foster this unique contribution to the world’s flora can rest assured that the grass will
never become an invasive pest. Restoring interrupted brome to its rightful home could bring positive
benefits too, once this quirky grass wins recognition as a unique national monument. British farmers
made it possible for interrupted brome to evolve in the first place. Let the grass grow once again in
its “natural” habitat, say the conservationists, and it could become a badge of honour for a new breed
of eco-friendly farmer.
The reconstruction of community in Talbot Park, Auckland
A An architecture of disguise is almost complete at Talbot Park in the heart
of Auckland’s Glen Innes. The place was once described as a state housing ghetto, rife with crime,
vandalism and other social problems. But today after a $48 million urban renewal makeover, the site is
home to 700 residents – 200 more than before – and has people regularly inquiring whether they can buy
or rent there. “It doesn’t look like social housing,” Housing New Zealand housing services manager Dene
Busby says of the tidy brick and weatherboard apartments and townhouses which would look just as much at
home in “there is no reason why public housing should look cheap in my view,” says Design Group
architect Neil of the eight three-bedroom terrace houses his firm designed.
B Talbot Park is a triangle of government-owned land bounded by Apirana Ave,
Pilkington Rd and Point England Rd. in the early 1960s, it was developed for state housing built around
a linear park that ran through the middle. Initially, there was a strong sense of a family-friendly
community. Former residents recall how the Talbot Park reserve played a big part in their childhoods – a
place where the kids in the block came together to play softball, cricket, tiggy, leapfrog and bullrush.
Sometimes they’d play “Maoris against Pakehas” but without any animosity. “It was all just good fun”,
says Georgie Thompson in Ben Schrader’s We Call it Home: A History of State Housing in New Zealand. “We
had respect for our neighbours and addressed them by title Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so,” she recalls.
C Quite what went wrong with Talbot Park is not clear. We call it Home
Records that the community began to change in the late 1970s as more Pacific Islanders and Europeans
moved in. The new arrivals didn’t readily integrate with the community, a “them and us” mentality
developed, and residents interact with their neighbours less. What was clear was the buildings were
deteriorating and becoming dilapidated, petty crime was on the rise and the reserve – the focus of fond
childhood memories – had become a wasteland and was considered unsafe.
D But it wasn’t until 2002 that Housing New Zealand decided the properties
needed upgrading. The master renewal plan didn’t take advantage of the maximum accommodation density
allowable (one unit per 100 sq metres) but did increase density to one unit per 180 sq m by refurbishing
all 108 star flat units, removing the multis and building 111 new home. The Talbot strategy can be
summed up as mix, match and manage. Mix up the housing with various plans from a mix of architects,
match house styles to what’s built by the private sector, match tenants to the mix, and manage their
occupancy. Inevitably cost comes into the equation. “If you’re going to build low-cost homes, you’ve got
to keep them simple and you can’t afford a fancy bit on them.” Says Michael Thompson of Architectus
which designed the innovative three-level Atrium apartments lining two sides of a covered courtyard. At
$300,000 per two-bedroom unit, the building is more expensive but provides for independent disabled
accommodation as well as offering solar hot water heating and rainwater collection for toilet cisterns
and outside taps.
E The renewal project budget at $1.5 million which will provide park
pathways, planting, playgrounds, drinking fountains, seating, skateboard rails, a half-size basketball
hard court, and a pavilion. But if there was any doubt this is a low socio-economic area, the
demographics for the surrounding Tamaki area are sobering. Of the 5000 households there, 55 per cent are
statehouses, 28 per cent privately owned (compared to about 65 per cent nationally) and 17 per cent are
private rental. The area has a high concentration of households with incomes in the $5000 to $15,000
range and very few with an income of over $70,000. That’s in sharp contrast to the more affluent suburbs
like Kohimarama and St John’s that surround the area.
F “The design is for people with different culture background,” says
architect James Lunday of Common Ground which designed the 21 large family homes. “Architecturally we
decided to be relatively conservative – a nice house in its own garden with a bit of space and good
indoor-outdoor flow.” There’s a slight reflection of the whare and a Pacific fale, but not overplayed
“The private sector is way behind in urban design and sustainable futures,” says Bracey. “Redesigning
streets and parks is a big deal and very difficult to do. The private sector won’t do it, because it’s
so hard.
G There’s no doubt good urban design and good architecture play a significant
part in the scheme. But probably more important is a new standard of social control. Housing New Zealand
calls it “intensive tenancy management”. Others view it as social engineering. “It’s a model that we are
looking at going forward,” according to Housing New Zealand’s central Auckland regional manager Graham
Bodman. “The focus is on frequent inspections, helping tenants to get to know each other and trying to
create an environment of respect for neighbours,” says Bodman. That includes some strict rules – no loud
parties after 10 pm, no dogs, no cats in the apartments, no washing hung over balcony rails and a
requirement to mow lawns and keep the property tidy. Housing New Zealand has also been active in
organising morning teas and street barbecues for residents to meet their neighbours. “It’s all based on
the intensification,” says Community Renewal project manager Stuart Bracey. “We acknowledge if you are
going to put more people living closer together, you have to actually help them to live closer together
because it creates tension – especially for people that aren’t used to it.”
H "You could say metamemory is a byproduct of going to school," says
psychologist Robert Kail, Ph.D., of Purdue University, who studies children from birth to 20 years, the
time of life when mental development is most rapid. "The question-and-answer process, especially
exam-taking, helps children learn—and also teaches them how their memory works. This may be one reason
why, according to a broad range of studies in people over 60, the better educated a person is, the more
likely they are to perform better in life and on psychological tests. A group of adult novice chess
players were compared with a group of child experts at the game. In tests of their ability to remember a
random series of numbers, the adults, as expected, outscored the children. But when asked to remember
the patterns of chess pieces arranged on a board, the children won. "Because they'd played a lot of
chess, their knowledge of chess was better organized than that of the adults, and their existing
knowledge of chess served as a framework for new memory," explains Kail.
I Specialized knowledge is a mental resource that only improve with time.
Crystallized intelligence about one's occupation apparently does not decline at all until at least age
75, and if there is no disease or dementia, may remain even longer. Special knowledge is often organized
by a process called "chunking." If procedure A and procedure B are always done together, for example,
the mind may merge them into a single command. When you apply yourself to a specific interest—say,
cooking—you build increasingly elaborate knowledge structures that let you do more and do it better.
This ability, which is tied to experience, is the essence of expertise. Vocabulary is one such
specialized form of accrued knowledge. Research clearly shows that vocabulary improves with time.
Retired professionals, especially teachers and journalists, consistently score higher on tests of
vocabulary and general information than college students, who are supposed to be in their mental prime.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The idea that we are ignorant of our true selves surged in the 20th century and became common. It’s still
a commonplace, but it’s changing shape. These days, the bulk of the explanation is done by something
else: the ‘dual-process’ model of the brain. We now know that we apprehend the world in two radically
opposed ways, employing two fundamentally different modes of thought: ‘System 1’ and ‘System 2’. System
1 is fast; it’s intuitive, associative and automatic and it can’t be switched off. Its operations
involve no sense of intentional control, but it’s the “secret author of many of the choices and
judgments you make” and it’s the hero of Daniel Kahneman’s alarming, intellectually stimulating book
Thinking, Fast and Slow.
System 2 is slow, deliberate and effortful. Its operations require attention. (To set it going now, ask
yourself the question “What is 13 x 27?”). System 2 takes over, rather unwillingly, when things get
tricky. It’s “the conscious being you call ‘I'”, and one of Kahneman’s main points is that this is a
mistake. You’re wrong to identify with System 2, for you are also and equally and profoundly System 1.
Kahneman compares System 2 to a supporting character who believes herself to be the lead actor and often
has little idea of what’s going on.
System 2 is slothful, and tires easily (a process called ‘ego depletion’) – so it usually accepts what
System 1 tells it. It’s often right to do so, because System 1 is for the most part pretty good at what
it does; it’s highly sensitive to subtle environmental cues, signs of danger, and so on. It does,
however, pay a high price for speed. It loves to simplify, to assume WYSIATI (‘what you see is all there
is’). It’s hopelessly bad at the kind of statistical thinking often required for good decisions, it
jumps wildly to conclusions and it’s subject to a fantastic range of irrational cognitive biases and
interference effects, such as confirmation bias and hindsight bias, to name but two.
The general point about our self-ignorance extends beyond the details of Systems 1 and 2. We’re
astonishingly susceptible to being influenced by features of our surroundings. One famous (pre-mobile
phone) experiment centred on a New York City phone booth. Each time a person came out of the booth after
having made a call, an accident was staged – someone dropped all her papers on the pavement. Sometimes a
dime had been placed in the phone booth, sometimes not (a dime was then enough to make a call). If there
was no dime in the phone booth, only 4% of the exiting callers helped to pick up the papers. If there
was a dime, no fewer than 88% helped.
Since then, thousands of other experiments have been conducted, all to the same general effect. We don’t
know who we are or what we’re like, we don’t know what we’re really doing and we don’t know why we’re
doing it. For example, Judges think they make considered decisions about parole based strictly on the
facts of the case. It turns out (to simplify only slightly) that it is their blood-sugar levels really
sitting in judgment. If you hold a pencil between your teeth, forcing your mouth into the shape of a
smile, you’ll find a cartoon funnier than if you hold the pencil pointing forward, by pursing your lips
round it in a frown-inducing way.
In an experiment designed to test the ‘anchoring effect’, highly experienced judges were given a
description of a shoplifting offence. They were then ‘anchored’ to different numbers by being asked to
roll a pair of dice that had been secretly loaded to produce only two totals – three or nine. Finally,
they were asked whether the prison sentence for the shoplifting offence should be greater or fewer, in
months, than the total showing on the dice. Normally the judges would have made extremely similar
judgments, but those who had just rolled nine proposed an average of eight months while those who had
rolled three proposed an average of only five months. All were unaware of the anchoring effect.
The same goes for all of us, almost all the time. We think we’re smart; we’re confident we won’t be
unconsciously swayed by the high list price of a house. We’re wrong. (Kahneman admits his own inability
to counter some of these effects.) For example, another systematic error involves ‘duration neglect’ and
the ‘peak-end rule’. Looking back on our experience of pain, we prefer a larger, longer amount to a
shorter, smaller amount, just so long as the closing stages of the greater pain were easier to bear than
the closing stages of the lesser one.