Family: Melastomataceae

High Risk Traits:

• Thrives in tropical climates
  
• Other Medinilla species have become invasive
  
• Shade-tolerant
  
• Reproduces by seeds
  
• Seeds dispersed by birds and intentionally by people
  
• Small seed size may facilitate accidental dispersal
  
• Gaps in biological and ecological information may reduce accuracy of risk prediction

Low Risk Traits:

• No reports of invasiveness or naturalization, but limited evidence of cultivation outside native range
  
• Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
  
• Non-toxic
  
• Ornamental value
  
• Grows predominantly as an epiphyte, and any potential impacts may be limited to competition with the native epiphytic biota of a region (i.e. unlikely to transform the fundamental structure of an ecosystem)