Family: Fabaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Elevation range exceeds 1000 m, and able to grow in 5 hardiness zones, demonstrating environmental versatility
- A temperate species that can grow in higher elevation tropical regions
- Naturalized in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America (but no evidence in Hawaiian Islands to date)
- A disturbance-adapted weed with negative impacts on agriculture and the natural environment
- Other Lotus species have become invasive
- Contains potentially toxic amounts of cyanogenic substances (although usually not a problem for grazing animals)
- Tolerates many soil types
- Can form dense cover that may exclude or outcompete other vegetation
- Reproduces primarily by seeds, but also by rhizomes
- Primarily self-incompatible (but low levels of seed set by selfed plants)
- Able to reach maturity in 3 months
- Seeds dispersed by ballistic dispersal, inadvertently along heavily trafficked areas, internally by animals, potentially by water, and intentionally planted by people
- Prolific seed production
- Forms a persistent seed bank
- Once established, tolerates repeated grazing and mowing
Low Risk Traits:
- Primarily a temperate species; may only be a risk at higher elevations of tropical and subtropical islands
- Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
- Provides fodder for livestock
- Light-demanding
- Herbicides may provide effective control