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)