WILD shrubs — a shrub is usually, not always, taller than what are generally called ‘wild flowers’ but much smaller than trees — tend to be largely overlooked and unappreciated, yet they form a major part of rural landscapes and some localised varieties can even be found thriving in urban locations too.

Shrubs are extremely important as they often provide dense ‘carpets’ of mixed cover in which birds can safely nest, wild animals make their homes and insects of all kinds can safely breed and thus help to maintain a natural balanced ecological environment.

They also, because of their spreading root systems, help to hold soil in place and prevent erosion and landslides in mountainous regions during periods of rain and snow, plus, some shrubs provide useful forage for domesticated animals such as goats and are, obviously, nibbled on by wild herbivores as well.

Some wild shrubs are deciduous, this means that they shed their leaves during the winter and others are evergreen, keeping their leaves all the year round. Some have pretty flowers, others have tiny flowers that are overlooked by people but appreciated by bees and butterflies and all eventually bear seeds or fruits, edible and otherwise, which are, unless poisonous, eaten by birds, animals, insects and sometimes by humans too. Having said this, please do not eat anything wild unless it has been properly identified first by an expert in such matters.

Shrubs are, depending on the species of course, used for things like creating boundary fences, thorny shrubs such as berberis are preferred for this with berberis baluchistanica being used where it grows in Balochistan and berberis lycium being used in the hills and mountains of the northern regions and also in Azad Kashmir. This very prickly shrub has small, hard, shiny leaves and is covered in a mass of tiny, clustered, golden blossom during the spring, followed by blackish or purplish berries during the summer months and is highly unusual in that this species has, on the inside of its branches and roots, bright yellow in colour and was once very popular for use in tanning leather but, these days, such tasks are performed by chemicals.

Thorny shrubs are preferred for fences and boundaries because they act as protection against intruders of both the four-legged and the two-legged kind. But, unfortunately, they are not, as with all other wild plants, as much appreciated as they once were and, especially around the Margalla Hills National Park area outside Islamabad, huge swathes of wild shrubs are set on fire and totally destroyed by people desirous of clearing land on which to build housing developments and the like.

Widespread loss of wild shrubs unbalances the natural environment and ruins local ecosystems and they, all kinds, need to be preserved and protected to help save our indigenous wild life in all of its varied forms.