Family: Asparagaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Grows in tropical climates
  
• Widely planted and naturalized
  
• Disturbance weed and hazard along trails and roads
  
• Habitat-modifying environmental weed
  
• Other Furcraea species are invasive
  
• Leaves spine-tipped
  
• Sap is toxic to fish, guinea pigs and rabbits
  
• Sap a skin irritant
  
• Tolerates many soil types
  
• Forms dense thickets
  
• Reproduces vegetatively with bulbils (does not require pollination)
  
• Bulbils dispersed by gravity, as garden waste, and possibly by wind and water
  
• Planted intentionally
  
• Produces thousands of bulbils
  
• Tolerates cutting and fire
  
• No natural enemies known in Hawaiian Islands

Low Risk Traits:

• Young plants palatable to cattle
  
• Ornamental uses
  
• Limited or no seed set
  
• Reaches maturity after 5 years
  
• Bulbil may limit longer distance dispersal
  
• Select herbicides provide effective control