Family: Arecaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Native to tropical climates
  
• Naturalized (with a long history of cultivation)
  
• Listed as invasive in parts of its introduced range (but with no description of negative impacts
  
• Leaf petioles edged with hard spines
  
• Possibly toxic if consumed in large quantities
  
• Tolerates many soil types
  
• Seeds spread intentionally by people, and large mammals
  
• Can be an alternative host of palm pathogens and diseases

Low Risk Traits:

• Regarded as a desirable food plant in native and introduced ranged
  
• Requires full sun
  
• Reached maturity after 8 or more years
  
• Large fruit and seeds limit would limit inadvertent dispersal
  
• Will not form a persistent seed bank