One of the loveliest bushes of all is Leycesteria. The more usual type is leycesteria formosa, hardy, strong-growing, almost bamboo-like, of up to six feet and sometimes more. It is particularly attractive in summer and autumn, when its long flowers hang down, white and claret, in a tubular shape. Up to four inches. Deep purple berries, not edible by humans. It is not a tender plant. Now this is all largely because, by pure chance, several times these big, lanky creations have appeared on top of walls and stone gateposts of neighbours. Your nurseryman, by the way, may have added a flourish by calling it The Pheasant Bush. And indeed, droppings from these birds have been found around them in places where the odd pheasant is not unknown. But when the familiar purple and white dangling flowers appear on top of a ten-foot wall in a Dublin garden, near which no living pheasant has been seen in a lifetime, you begin to wonder. Where is the nearest leycesteria? What bird deposited the seed (voided is a word often used) just where it is potentially most harmful - for the wall is up against a greenhouse, and the same wall is no recent erection.
Moreover, the plant is now about six feet and must have been lurking for several years, concealed by other foliage. To dislodge it is going to be a tricky business. Which brings us to the point; how many of the shrubs and trees around us, always excepting the well-barbered garden, are planted by birds? An old oak carries a promising elder in one of its great joints. The seed could not possibly be airborne. An ancient willow has several trees flourishing quietly in its great span.
And then think of the stores of acorns which some birds lay up for winter and do not take up because they have died in the meantime or just forgotten where the cache is. Life goes on. And how many of the hawthorn and crab-apples and rowans and other trees and shrubs owe their spread to birds? Brambles don't need birds to help them; they crawl and crawl without help.
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