Family: Poaceae
High Risk Traits:
- Broad climate suitability and elevation range
- Thrives, and spreads, in regions with tropical climates
- Naturalized on Niihau, Oahu, Lanai, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, and widely naturalized elsewhere
- A disturbance-adapted weedy grass that may impact agriculture or the natural environment
- Other Chloris species are invasive weeds
- Can be made poisonous to ruminants by too much nitrogen fertilizer applied to the growing plants
- Tolerates many soil types (not substrate-limited)
- Forms almost pure stands
- Reproduces by seeds and vegetatively by stolons
- A short-lived perennial or annual, able to reach maturity in one growing season
- Seeds can be spread by wind, water, attachment to clothing, animals, vehicles, and machinery and in contaminated agricultural produce
- When established, tolerates fire and heavy grazing
Low Risk Traits:
- Although reported as a weed of agriculture and the environment elsewhere, in the Hawaiian Islands, generally occurring in disturbed habitats or roadsides, but otherwise valued as a forage grass
- Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
- Very palatable forage species
- Non-toxic (if too much nitrogen has not been applied)
- Generally poor shade tolerance (dense shade may limit ability to spread)
- Primarily cross-pollinating (very low or absent seed set after self-pollination)
- Seeds do not survive well after ingestion by grazers (i.e., animals unlikely to spread seeds internally)
- Seeds have little or no dormancy and are unlikely to form a persistent seed bank
- Herbicide may provide effective control
