Family: Malvaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Thrives in tropical climates
  
• Naturalized in Africa
  
• Reported to be a crop weed, but no impacts have been specified
  
• Covered with irritating hairs
  
• Tolerates many soil types (potential spread not substrate-limited)
  
• Grows in tufts or thickets (but unclear if it forms dense monocultures, or is a component of thicket vegetation)
  
• Reproduces by seeds and vegetatively by root suckers
  
• Rapidly reaches maturity (100-120 days from seed)
  
• Seeds dispersed by people and probably water; other dispersal agents unknown
  
• Able to coppice and resprout after cutting

Low Risk Traits:

• Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs), but has irritating hairs
  
• Non-toxic
  
• Valued as a fiber plant, and used as a food in some regions
  
• A light-loving plant (unlikely to spread into shady, intact forests)
  
• Seeds rapidly lose viability, and will not form a persistent seed bank