Family: Fabaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Thrives in tropical climates
- Naturalized in Australia and elsewhere (origins uncertain)
- Environmental Weed of freshwater aquatic habitats
- Other Neptunia species have become invasive
- Chokes and smothers water surfaces
- Reproduces by seeds and spreads by vegetative fragments
- Seeds and fragments dispersed by water and by adhering to mud on vehicles
- Seeds may form a persistent seed bank
- Viable seeds passed through guts of livestock
- Able to regrow after cutting and mechanical control
Low Risk Traits:
- Unarmed (no spines, thorns or burrs)
- Provides fodder for livestock
- Non-toxic
- Consumed by humans as a vegetable, and has medicinal uses
- Herbicides may provide effective control