The REAL Giant Rhubarb - exposed in Wikileaks?

Did this plant.....

                                                                    Rheum rhabarbarum x giganticum      

 .....escape from here? 





  



The Devonport naval base - 
HMNZS Endeavour in port


I have just received a communication regarding my post of December 17 on the Giant rhubarb stalk-ing Devonport from the international security expert Dr Micheál Macfhionnlaoich, who specialises in botanical threats. He suggested that my identification of the Gigantic Rhubarb in Maud's garden (which I had taken to be the known but utterly natural threat Rheum rhabarbarum  x giganticum) might be mistaken. He believes there is a possibility that the plant could be from a strain of genetically-engineered bio-warfare plants being secretly bred at the nearby Devonport Naval Base.

This was news to me, but apparently there are references to giant rhubarb in the Wikileaks communications pertaining to New Zealand, which Dr Macfhionnlaoich has been studying. The Botanical Attache at the US embassy in Wellington (whose principal role is to facilitate the acceptance of genetically-engineered seeds and plants in New Zealand, by means of the dissemination of one-sided information and lavish hospitality and gifts to agri-businesspersons and politicians) also has the additional but usually minor role of reporting on New Zealand's genetic engineering activities back to Washington.

She has already had occasion to note to her political masters that the bio-security arrangements for New Zealand's genetic engineering experiments are generally woefully lax, and have been breached on numerous occasions. While this is not of any concern to the American administration, they would however be perturbed if New Zealand were developing bio-warfare capabilities using American technologies (and patented ones at that). This concern led the Botanical Attache to speculate, in one of the cables leaked by Wikileaks, that the breeding of especially sensitive GE plants, including potential bio-warfare plants such as the giant rhubarb, would most likely be carried out in genuinely high-security facilities, such as military bases. The Devonport naval base was her first pick for such a facility in New Zealand. This was both for the number of large old buildings which could be converted for contained plant breeding purposes, without anyone suspecting that a change of use had occurred, and also for its proximity to plant materials arriving in the Port of Auckland without adequate inspection.

Dr Macfhionnlaoich expressed scepticism at the Botanical Attache's line of reasoning, but did not rule out the possibility entirely. He advised obtaining samples of the scary plant in question, and having its DNA analysed, as this would provide definitive proof one way or the other. Unfortunately this is very expensive. (Moonshine Laboratories in nearby Takapuna, for example, quoted $114,615 plus GST to do the job. This turned out to be one of the lower quotes, but still way beyond the means of a humble bookseller.) So unless public (or American) support for the exercise is forthcoming we will never know the truth behind the mysteriously gigantic plant in Maud's backyard. It may be harmless – or it may be an even bigger menace than first suspected. I have therefore urged Maud to err on the side of caution, and destroy it now, before it breeds (if it can).

                           Beautiful Devonport - but for how much longer?