(no subject)

[joetwosixfour]

When Charles Dickens visited the ruins of the Roman Colosseum in 1846, he was captivated by the "walls and arches overgrown with green … the long grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit; chance products of the seeds dropped there by birds." And not just by birds. A few years later, a visiting botanist cataloged 420 plant species in the ruin, many of them exotics from Asia and Africa that could only have come from seeds catching a lift on animals imported for the gladiatorial games. By 1880, archaeologists had scoured away this "recombinant ecology" and its fantastically rich history to leave behind the bleached edifice we know today.

http://http://www.slate.com/id/2129660/?nav=navoa