Family: Piperaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Elevation range exceeds 1000 m, demonstrating environmental versatility
- Grows well in tropical climates
- Naturalized outside native range
- Other Piper species have become invasive
- Shade-tolerant
- Tolerates many soil types
- Climbing habit
- Reproduces by seeds and vegetatively (rooting at nodes)
- Cultivated forms monoecious and self-compatible
- Reproductively mature within 3 years from vegetative propagation
- Seeds adapted for bird and animal dispersal
- Tolerates and resprouts from regular pruning
Low Risk Traits:
- Domesticated crop with long history of cultivation
- No reports of invasiveness or negative impacts in introduced range
- Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
- Non-toxic
- Ornamental
- Recalcitrant seeds lose viability quickly (within one week)