Family: Rhamnaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Broad climate suitability, and elevation range exceeds 1000 m, demonstrating environmental versatility
- Naturalized in temperate to subtropical regions
- Widely naturalized outside native range (but no evidence in the Hawaiian Islands to date)
- Regarded as weedy and invasive in landscapes and potentially in agricultural settings
- Other species in genus are invasive
- Spiny forms exist
- Potentially allelopathic
- Tolerates many soil types
- May form pure stands
- Reproduces by seeds and vegetatively by suckering and root fragments
- Hybridizes with other species
- Able to reach maturity in 1-4 years
- Seeds dispersed by birds and mammals, and intentionally spread by people
- Able to coppice and resprout after cutting and fires
Low Risk Traits:
- A temperate species that may be more of a risk to higher elevation, cooler regions of tropical and subtropical islands
- Spineless forms exist
- Provides fodder for livestock
- Non-toxic, with edible fruit and medicinal uses
- Light demanding (deep shade may limit ability to spread)
- Self-incompatible
- Transient seed bank does not persist beyond one year
- Herbicides may provide effective control if needed