Electronic versions of the articles are available from:
- JSTOR from vol. 1 onwards, excluding current and three previous years.
- BioOne from vol. 45 (2008) onwards.
- EPUB or PDF versions from vol. 33 (1998) onwards and the contents of vols. 1–32 are available here.
Article search
Search results
1 results found (max 100).
Hopkins T. 2026: Two-thirds of the seeds of invasive Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) grow after overwintering at a western Finnish site. — Ann. Bot. Fennici 63: 57–61. | PDF
Abstract
Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is an invasive plant species in much of Europe. It is not well known how easily its seeds survive the winter and grow into seedlings, and eradication efforts typically focus on destroying plants in early summer before they produce seeds. I monitored both ripe and unripe balsam seeds spread onto the ground at a site with a balsam outbreak in western Finland. About two-thirds of the ripe seeds developed into seedlings the following year, as did a third of unripe seeds. Ripe seeds grew even better on disturbed ground with exposed soil. Each balsam plant thus has the potential to produce hundreds of viable offspring. For eradication efforts, the establishment rates observed at this site (1/3 unripe seeds and 2/3 ripe seeds) suggest that destroying sparsely growing balsam plants whose seeds are not yet ripe can be worthwhile and will considerably decrease the number of seedlings in the following year.