It will take 250 years to eradicate an invasive form of rhododendron from England at the current rate of removal, according to new figures, despite the woodland shrub posing “a mortal threat” to Britain’s temperate rainforest, campaigners warn.
Rhododendron ponticum, introduced from the Mediterranean and Asia and widely planted by the Victorians, covers at least 37,600 hectares (93,000 acres) in England, much of it in the west of the country, which is also home to the remaining fragments of temperate rainforest.
