History Main / MisplacedVegetation

* ''Toldi'', a heroic poem that served as the artistic debut of Hungarian poet János Arany, comes close to making this mistake, when the titular outcast nobleman is reunited with his loyal servant. The servant mentions maize in an offhand sentence. The plot takes place centuries before the discovery of America so there was not way he would know what maize is.

** As an expert linguist, Tolkien also thought it was anachronistic to have characters use the real-life ''words'' for these plants, which are of Native American origin (someone in the distant past of Europe wouldn't call it "tobacco"). This is why he came up with calling it "pipe-weed". He also has characters refer to "taters" most often (except for the one memorable scene when Samwell spells out that by "taters" he means "po-tay-toes"). Tolkien went so far as to even remove references to "tomatoes" from later editions of ''The Hobbit'' after the first publication edition.

** Vanilla is another product of the Columbian exchange. It's often associated with the country of Madagascar, thanks in part due to growing in the environment well. Yet Vanilla was actually domesticated in Veracruz Mexico.

** The opposite happened once the show moved to California. Desert shots--like the ones in "Within/Without" which were actually shot in a desert--were more realistic, while the ones portraying other parts of the US became markedly less realistic. Season 7's "Chimera," for example, set in Vermont, has many plant species (and weather for the time period it's set it) that simply do not exist in New England.

* ''Series/TheChosenTVSeries'' was largely filmed in the western United States, which goes a long way to explain why there are persimmon trees growing in Roman Judaea.

-->-- '''Prof. Summerlee''', BBC/A&E TV miniseries adaptation of ''Series/{{The Lost World|2001}}''

** Other fun products of the Colombian exchange introduced to the Old World: chocolate, chili (especially in Korea), rubber, paprika (a Hungarian staple spice), and maize corn (as contrasted with the more general definition of corn as any cereal crop).
** Vanilla is another product of the Colombian exchange. It's often associated with the country of Madagascar, thanks in part due to growing in the environment well. Yet Vanilla was actually domesticated in Veracruz Mexico.
* Tall, waving White Pines (covered in ''snow'', no less) in Georgia (See DreamingOfAWhiteChristmas).
* Pineapples are strongly associated with Hawai'i and the Caribbean...and originated in South America. To the extent that in Peru, if not other South American countries, restaurants will frequently call menu items "Hawai'ian" if pineapple is an ingredient.
* Speaking of Hawai'i, this is a very interesting example. Studies have shown that sweet potatoes were a widely-used crop of ancient Hawai'i. More studies have shown that sweet potatoes are, in fact, not native to Hawaii or any of the islands the Native Hawai'ians could've migrated from. They're actually native to South America. How the Native Hawai'ians (and a variety of other Polynesian cultures) obtained sweet potatoes has long been a subject of debate. Given that Polynesians have a well-earned reputation as great mariners, one controversial but decently well-supported theory is that they sailed all the way to South America and brought back sweet potatoes.

* Johnsongrass is a type of Sorghum that is native to Africa and Asia. It's a noxious weed in the United States and Argentina. Yes, it's related to ''Sorghum''.

* In ''Last Chance to See'', Douglas Adams notes that privet, that plant synonymous with dull suburban hedgerows, has become an absolute menace on islands where European settlers wanted to mark their borders with something that reminded them of home.

* ''Jacaranda mimosifolia'' is native to Argentina and Bolivia, but the trees have been planted in a slew of different places (particularly Australia and parts of the US) for their beautiful flowers. They're regarded as an invasive species in South Africa and parts of Queensland, as its seeds germinate easily and its root system out-competes local species.

AllDesertsHaveCacti is a common subtrope. May occasionally be the result of HollywoodProvincialism, though filmmakers are careful not to show palm trees growing in places too temperate for them. Viewers aren't ''that'' moronic.

* Somewhat zigzagged with raspberries -- surprisingly they are native to the Old World ''and'' the New World.

* A German soccer team trainer once famously stated that a certain African player should go back to Africa to dribble around the cacti. [[LittleDidIKnow Little did he know]] that there's only one cactus species that can be found on the whole African continent, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhipsalis_baccifera the mistletoe cactus.]]

This can be easily justified since many travelers have introduced plants from elsewhere if the new area's climate can accommodate them. For example, relatively few palm trees grow native in the US, and [[AllDesertsHaveCacti cacti]] grow ''only'' in North and Latin America unless taken abroad. Also, if a work of fiction is set somewhere that's ''[[FantasyCounterpartCulture like]]'' somewhere in the ancient or medieval world but isn't specifically there, they have an out for including things like potatoes or any other real-life plant: it's not set in the real world. Plant misplacement is especially present in works taking place in rainforests since it's hard to search for the tree species growing in these locations even with the help of the Internet. Not only there are a lot of different tree species unknown to the public, but different rainforests have different trees.

* A German soccer team trainer once famously stated that a certain African player should go back to Africa to dribble around the cacti. Little did he know that there's only one cactus species that can be found on the whole African continent, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhipsalis_baccifera the mistletoe cactus.]]

* It's occasionally claimed that the trees visible in establishing shots on ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' couldn't possibly grow in a New York climate -- however, [[AluminumChristmasTrees those shots are all taken in New York]]!

* ''Film/BenAndArthur'' has a shot of the palm trees at the "Vermont" airport. There are also abundant subtropical flora in the garden where Ben and Arthur have their "New England" wedding.

* ''Manga/{{Major}}'' season 4 features the main character Goro Shigeno playing for a minor league team in Memphis, TN where the stadium is surrounded by a cityscape featuring palm trees planted LA style along the streets. Memphis is a very forested city, but palm trees don't grow well there.
* Used in an AwesomeByAnalysis moment in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''. While Sasuke and Naruto are unconscious and Sakura is protecting them, the three Sound Ninjas try to kill them all. Dozo is clued into the fact that Sakura has laid traps by the fact that the dirt is a different color and that the type of grass she used to cover the dirt doesn't grow in the forest they're in. Which makes one wonder where she got the grass.

* Roman legionaries are seen PeelingPotatoes as part of their chores in ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}}'', some 1700 years before their discovery by the western world. Justified by RuleOfFunny, as AnachronismStew is nearly the entire point.
* The ComicBook/ChickTract ''Boo!'' depicts druids in the medieval British Isles carving jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins. Pumpkins are native to the Americas — historically speaking, they should have been carving ''turnips''.
* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Tim clues into the fact that the woods Stephen has led him into are mystical in nature when he realizes there are plants there that should not be growing in an Appalachian forest.
* ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'': ''[[Recap/TintinTintinInTheCongo Tintin in the Congo]]'' had rubber trees, native to South America, growing wild in Africa. Could possibly be [[FanWank justified post-hoc]] if they're not truly wild, but simply feral. There are commercial rubber plantations in Africa. Also counts as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, as the author infamously didn't do any research for the rest of this volume.

* The daily comic strip ''ComicStrip/{{Crock}}'' follows a French Foreign Legion unit in North Africa. It routinely features cacti, which only occur naturally in New World deserts (except for the mistletoe cactus, which looks nothing like the stereotypical cactus). May be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic, since several species of cactus from the new world have become naturalized through the Mediterranean basin, with most having been imported more than 100 years ago for use either as crops or ornamentals.

* A particularly egregious example showing CaliforniaDoubling in ''Film/BenAndArthur'' with a shot of the palm trees at the "Vermont" airport. There are also abundant subtropical flora in the garden where Ben and Arthur have their "New England" wedding.

* The island where ''Literature/TheSwissFamilyRobinson'' find themselves hosts an astonishing and unlikely variety of flora and fauna.

* In ''Film/JurassicPark'', Casuarina trees (found only in southeast Asia, Australia and India) coexist with Coast Redwood trees (found only in certain parts of California) on the same Costa Rican island.

* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'': if you look very closely during the Elephant Patrol's first appearance in the film, you can actually see acacia trees in the background. Acacias grow in very dry deserts and scrubland, not jungles. In the same movie, Baloo explains to Mowgli in a song how to pick the fruit of the prickly pear... which is a species of cactus from the arid zones of America (though it's known to become an invasive species elsewhere, especially in Australia).

[[folder: Comic Strips]]

* Thanks to mankind's tendency to move species around for the hell of it, you can find certain species in areas where they have no right whatsoever to grow. There is a small Caribbean island infested with ''pine trees'' that the government was having the darnedest time killing off. The eucalyptus tree, native to Australia, has expanded across California, South Africa, Madagascar's highlands, Ethiopia, and north of Spain for the same reason. Much like MisplacedWildlife, this either kills off the plants moved or the indigenous plants, depending on the environment. Many countries maintain noxious/invasive weed eradication programs similar to [[http://plants.usda.gov/java/noxiousDriver this US example]]. Eucalyptus trees in particular are exceptionally good at draining swamps, which is why they were imported into places as diverse as Israel (Mandatory Palestine at the time) and Southern California.

* Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), native to Europe and Asia, has become a major pest in parts of the US, and a particular bane of equestrians, as it spreads prolifically and is toxic to horses.

* Speaking of Hawai'i, this is a very interesting example. Studies have shown that sweet potatoes were a widely-used crop of ancient Hawai'i. More studies have shown that sweet potatoes are, in fact, not native to Hawaii or any of the islands the Native Hawai'ians could've migrated from. They're actually native to South America. How the Native Hawai'ians obtained sweet potatoes has long been a subject of debate.

** None of the Final Four notice that wherever they're stranded, it can hardly be thought of as the middle of nowhere considering there are plants in pots all around. What's more, they're mostly plants not native to the area, such as coconut palms, pineapple plants, and banana trees. Chef is the only one to express confusion, as he asks why there are palm trees and coconuts in Northern Ontario. Chris answers that they're leftover props from a dinosaur movie shoot that they reused to save money.

** Courtney questions why there are palm trees in Muskoka when a coconut falls on her head in "[[Recap/TotalDramaHauteCampTure Haute Camp-ture]]". It gets HandWaved by the production dumping a pile of snow, a sled, and a Native Canadian on her after she complains that the least they can do is make their props geographically correct.

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it. Chef expresses confusion as to what a palm tree (found almost exclusively in tropical or subtropical climates) is doing in temperate northern Toronto.