Family: Salicaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Grows in subtropical climates
  
• Elevation range exceeds 1000 m
  
• Naturalized in Australia and outside native range in Africa
  
• Regarded as a weed of unspecified impacts
  
• Possesses sharp, long stem spines in the leaf axils
  
• Allelopathic
  
• Tolerates light shade
  
• Tolerates many soil types
  
• Seeds dispersed by birds and fruit-eating mammals
  
• Becomes reproductively mature in 3+ years
  
• Tolerates heavy pruning

Low Risk Traits:

• Despite spines, foliage is palatable to browsing animals and is used as fodder
  
• Fruit edible to animals and people
  
• Used as a living fence and barrier plant
  
• Trees typically dioecious (although monoecious trees sometimes occur)
  
• Seeds are recalcitrant and will not persist in the soil