Bermuda Erns: These great green sea eagles eventually became extinct, despite anything anyone could do. These were the largest creatures ever to fly under their own power on the planet. And the last corpse had the greatest wingspread of all, which was nineteen feet, two and three-quarters inches> — Kurt VonnegutI>Breakfast of Champions<$>.

<$>EVERAL years ago, a couple with Bermuda connections moved into a small town in New England, having purchased an historic home in need of a good dose of TLC. Their preservation and restoration work included the regeneration of the front lawn with endemic wildflowers, which meant that the area could not be mowed into golf turf, with the normal addiction to neatness and cleanliness that is symbolic of suburban America.

With spring the wildflowers bloomed, as did the tempers of the town council. As if faced with a lawn of marijuana buds, the town sued the home restorers for failing to mow their lawn, in keeping the grass and flowers up, or rather down, with the Joneses.

America is a great place for such legal action, the latest madness being the suit for many millions for a pair of pants lost at the drycleaners, taken out by no less an eminent citizen than a judge.

The preservations argued that their lawns, with wildflowers rampant, were in fact in complete compliance with the town regulations on historic buildings and sites. To the contrary, it was the other folk who were at fault, by mowing their wild flora towards extinction every spring.

Amazingly, for those used to constant losses on historic war fronts, the restorers won the case. The town now has to put up with the “messy” look of an untidy but beautiful spring lawn, replete with many species of wildflowers, which oddly enough the deer do not eat.

We have taken on the “kill ‘em and clean ‘em” mentality of our American cousins, especially in public areas such as roadside verges. In this sense, verge means “a narrow grass edging separating a flower border from a walk”.

In many places here, the verge has taken over the flowerbeds or has subsumed the earth with concrete. The grassy border has become the whole country and in line with suburban thinking, it is mowed to death year round. No wild thing shall survive the chopper blade of the modern rotary mower, a device apparently invented by a Bermudian, but appropriated by a visiting American executive of a major retail outfit.

In the wars on wildness, it is questionable as to who or what was the first terrestrial Bermudian. One day millions of years ago, Bermuda popped its hot volcanic head above the sea, having inched its way up there over countless millennia by endless underwater eruptions.

After it ceased to boil over, the top of Mount Bermuda was eroded off and then capped by the building of a coral atoll by creatures of the sea, undoubtedly the first true Bermudians.

About a million years ago, the island started to assume some of its present geological characteristics and became a good landing field for oceanic and migratory birds.

The cahow settled right into paradise and made Bermuda home. Cahows were not affected by lawn mowing, but faced extinction as their eggs in ground nests were gobbled up, once pigs illegally emigrated from passing or wrecked Spanish vessels.

Other early visitors would have been Portuguese men-of-war and land crabs, the first images of which in this hemisphere were painted in America in 1585 by John White.

The birds dropped bomblets containing seeds of many types, including most of the 17 plants that make up Bermuda’s roster of endemic (“First Bermudians”) trees and plants.

These plants have been here long enough to have developed wildly into unique species of vegetation. A new law in 2003 acknowledged that some of these true Bermudians are endangered species. It is against the law to chop them down, but apparently mowing them into extinction is just fine.

From fossil evidence, the Bermuda Palmetto may lay claim to the earliest of the endemics, coming into existence about 300,000 years ago. The fossil record for the island is very incomplete, however, so the Bermuda Cedar or the tiny Bermudiana wildflower might some day take that ti.The<$> Bermudiana is the island’s “national flower” and comes out in April and May, producing small, delicate blossoms in shades of blue. A red Bermudiana is also to be found, but is much rarer. In order for the Bermudiana to bloom, lawn cutting has to stop in October and cannot be resumed until mid-June. Such a mandate is intolerable to many, who delight in a year-round crew-cut lawn-do, at considerable expense.

The cost to the environment is counted in the deaths of any endemic or native seedlings that begin to spout in the autumn and winter, including most of the local wildflowers.

There is a town somewhere that has become famous for its roadside flowers and now attracts thousands of visitors for those views alone. The townsfolk agreed that the planting of the verges and adjacent properties should be a community effort, to beautify the place and ultimately to encourage visitors. Everyone takes part in this ongoing exercise to enhance the town and their lives with flowers everywhere.

Perhaps it might be an idea for our own sense of place and belonging, and for the enhancement of tourism, to reintroduce wildflower populations to the roadside verges and private properties bordering the roads.

Plant some cedars and palmettos as well in that green belt. This could be a national project that would bring together government and community resources to the benefit ofl. Spring would bring a proliferation of Easter lilies, Bermudianas, freesias, paper-whites, day-lilies and other blossoms to delight the visitor and give relief from the boredom of suburbanite grass verges, as well as preserving and expanding the populations of some of the most ancient Bermudians.The funds saved from grass-cutting for six months of the year could be funnelled into the very necessary removal of casuarinas, peppers and ficus trees that daily increase their destruction inroads of Bermuda’s natural environments and cultural monuments.

The author thanks Jens Alers for the Bermuda Erreference.<$>

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments cbe sent to drharris<$IU>logic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.